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PIONEER HISTORY 

OF THE 

HOLLAND PURCHASE 

OF 

WESTERN NEW YORK: 

EMBRACING 

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE ANCIENT REMAINS; 

A BRIEF HISTORY OF 

OUR IMMEDIATE PREDECESSORS, THE CONFEDERATED IROQUOIS, THEIR SYSTEM 

OF GOVERNMENT, WARS, ETC. A SYNOPSIS OF COLONIAL HISTORY: 

' SOME NOTICES OF THE BORDER WARS OF THE REVOLUTION : 

AND A HISTORY OF 

PIONEER SETTLEMENT 

UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE HOLLAND COMPANY; 

INCLUDING 

REMINISCENCES OF THE WAR OF 1812; 

THE ORIGIN, PROGRESS AND COMPLETION OF THE 

ERIE CANAL, 

ETC. ETC. ETC. -^ 






BY O. TURNER. 



BUFFALO: 

PUBLISHED BY JEWETT, THOMAS d: CO. 
GEO. H. DERBY & CO. 



1850. 



Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1849, by O. Tornek, in the 
Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Northern District of Now York. 



JEWETT, THOMAS & CO. 
RTEREOTYPERS AND PRINTERS, 
Buffalo, Tf. Y. 



SURVIVING PIONEERS 

AND 

DESCENDANTS OF PIONEERS, 

OF THE 

HOLLAND PURCHASE, 

THI3 WORK IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED, BY 

THE AUTHOR. 



PREFACE. 



Read the Preface ! A command that may be regarded as too imper- 
ative, and yet one that an author has some right to make, in consideration 
of the deep interest which he may be supposed to have in its observance. 
Having prepared an entertainment, as he is about to open the door to his 
guests, it is quite natural he should wish to pass them in with his own 
introduction. 

First, as to the general plan of the work : — There may be readers of it 
who have anticipated a history more strictly local in its character, than 
they will find this. It was the original intention of the author to have 
commenced with the close of the Revolution, and traced settlement and its 
progress westward, very much as has been done, with the exception of a 
more extended detail. Upon proceeding to his task, however, after mate- 
rials for it had been collected, the important consideration presented itself, 
that, although there existed, in detached forms, sketches of the earliest 
approaches of civilization to this region — of early colonization tending in 
this direction — of the French and Indian and French and English wars; 
the long contest for supremacy and dominion; the occupancy of that 
extraordinary race of men, the Jesuit Missionaries; the Border Wars of 
the Revolution ; still, there was no history extant that connected all this, 
and furnished an unbroken chain of events allied to the region of Western 
New York, and especially the Holland Purchase. The distinguished 
historian, Mr. Bancroft, was the first to draw from French sources any 
considerable amount of the history of French occupancy of the valley 
of the St. Lawrence, and the borders of our lakes and rivers ; of the 
advents of Jesuit Missionaries, and their cotemporaries, the fur traders; 
and embellish his country's history with a long series of interesting events, 
before almost unnoticed. But little could be gathered by an humble local 
historian, after such a gleaner had passed over the ground ; but his work 
is of a magnitude to preclude access to it, by the great mass of readers; 



vi PREFACE. 

and that portion of it having reference to this region, but incidental to the 
general history of the United States. Aside from this, the early history of 
our region, embracing the periods and events alluded to, was to be found 
only in detached forms — much of it in old newspaper files and magazines 
— in conditions to make it generally inaccessible. 

Having adopted the title, Pioneer History of the Holland Purchase, 
early events, the first glimpses that our own race had of this region, was 
indicated, as the starting point; and taking position there, the necessity 
of a'oino- even still farther back, seemed involved. The ancient remains, 
the mysterious, rude fortifications upon the bluffs, ridges, and banks of 
streams, throughout our local region, form an interesting feature, and one 
that claimed a place in our local annals. Some account of our immediate 
predecessors, the Seneca Iroquois, was suggested as coming within the 
immediate range of local history; and especially as they were to be 
mingled in almost our entire narrative. All that relates to them possesses 
a peculiar interest; that which relates to the system of government of 
the confederacy to which they belong, is a branch of their history but 
recently investigated to any considerable extent; is far less generally 
understood than most things appertaining to them, and has therefore been 
made to occupy a prominent position in that portion of the work.* 

As civilization approached this region, from that dhection, colonization 
upon the St. Lawrence has necessarily been the main feature of that 
portion of the work having reference to European Pioneer advents. 
Enough, however, of early colonization elsewhere has been embraced, to 
afford a glimpse of cotemporary events ; and especially such as finally had 
a bearing upon events in this quarter. Starting principally with the 
advent of Champlain, a connected chain of events has been attempted, 
extending through long and eventful years, down to the extinguishing 
of the Indian title, the advent of the Holland Company, Pioneer settlement 
under their auspices, and the two prominent events, the war of 1812, and 
the construction of the Erie Canal, belonging to a later period. The title 
of the Avork, of itself, indicates its general character, and _ the intention 
tif the author not to embrace events, generally, beyond early gettlement, — 
pioneer advents. Another volume would have been necessary, had it 
been concluded to extend the work to a later period; and besides, as a 

* The credit of a thorough investigation of this admirable specimen of Indian 
legislation — of unschooled forest statesmanship — and wisdom, if we regard its prac- 
tical workings — belongs to Lewis H. Morgan, Esq. of Rochester, who communicated 
the result of his labors, in numbers, to the North American Review. In reading his 
essays, it is difficult to determine which most to admire, the careful and industrious 
researches of the author, in a matter so difficult to comprehend, with no records, and 
little bej'ond obscure tradition for his guides; or the zealous and lively feelings he 
manifests, in every thing that concerns the character and welfare of the unfortunate 
race whose interesting traditions he has aided in rescuing from oblivion. 



PREFACE. Vll 

general rule, public events should not assume the form of history, until 
time has ripened them for it; and especially such as have involved contro- 
versy, many of the prominent actors in which may survive — the asperities 
it engendered, xinobliterated. A political history of the Holland Purchase, 
has formed no part of the plan of work; on the contrary, even allusions 
to partisan contentions have been mostly avoided. That should form a 
distinct branch of history; its appropriate alliance is with the general 
history of the state ; and those who may desire to study it, have the means 
furnished them in the candid and impartial work of Judge Hammond. 

The range of the work thus extended, its magnitude has been increased 
far beyond the original design. In adopting the general plan, there was a 
purpose to be subserved, in addition to those that have been named. Had 
the work been merely a history of settlement and local events upon the 
Holland Purchase, it must necessarily have been one of considerable 
magnitude — attended with an expense that any prospective local sale 
would not have warranted. It has therefore been the aim of the author, 
to impart to it both a local and general interest ; how far he has been 
successful, time, and the ordeal to which he submits his labors, must 
determine. From the moment the general plan of the work was adopted, 
and its expense to the purchaser enhanced beyond the mark originally 
indicated, it has been the constant aim of the author to give it a corres- 
ponding value. It will be seen that little expense has been spared in its 
mechanical execution ; and the author flatters himself that the twenty-two 
illustrations will be adequately appreciated by those who possess themselves 
of a copy of the work. The Maps of the eight Counties have been 
prepared by a competent hand, carefully adapted to localities as they now 
exist, and may be considered of themselves as having an intrinsic value, 
equal to any addition that has been made to the price of the work, from 
the lowest sum that has been named in connection with the enterprize ; 
while the number of excellent Portraits of distinguished Pioneers, have 
been extended far beyond what was originally contemplated. The careful 
legal deduction of title in the Appendix, in addition to the historical 
deduction in the body of the work, will be found a valuable accession to 
law libraries, while it will aid the general reader in a better understanding 
of that subject, than can be obtained from any facilities hitherto furnished 
in a form of general access. 

It is hardly necessary to inform the intelligent reader, that Mr. Ban- 
croft's History of the United States has been the basis of all that relates 
to French and English occupancy ; though the autlior has been materially 
aided by Lanman's History of Michigan, and Brown's History of Illinois, 
both of which had traced events from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to 



Vlll PREFACE. 

their local regions; and lie regards himself as somewhat fortunate, in 
having been enabled to add, from various sources, no inconsiderable 
amount of materials that have hitherto had no place in history, other than 
in the form of manuscript records, neglected newspaper files, or among the 
collections of Historical Societies.* If, as most historians are obliged to 
do, he has been under the necessity of culling his materials, in many 
instances, from fields already explored, he may, perhaps, without incurring 
the charge of egotism, assume that he has occasionally been enabled to 
bring fresh contributions to the common stock of historical knowledge. 

There are those to whom the author is indebted for local statistics, who 
will miss a portion of their contributions. The omissions have been reluc- 
tantly made. To have carried out the plan of giving in detail, all that 
related to early county and town organizations, would have been to exclude 
large portions of the work that Avere deemed more essential, and it is 
hoped, will prove in the end quite as acceptable. It was intended, 
however, to have given sketches of the first organization of all the Coun- 
ties ; but that intention has been but imperfectly consummated, owing 
principally, to the absence of the necessary materials. The records of the 
primitive organization of the Courts, etc. of old Niagara, were inaccessible, 
owing to the condition in which the large mass of records were in, prepara- 
tory to a new arrangement of them, in the Clerk's office of Erie. The 
author unexpectedly failed in procuring the primitive records of Chautau- 
que and Allegany. 

It was a paramount object in giving sketches of the Pioneer settlement 
of the Holland Purchase, to embrace as many of the names, and as much 
of personal reminiscences, as practicable. To this end, the general plan 
was adopted, of giving a list of all who took contracts previous to January 
1st, 1807 ; and of the first five or six, and sometimes more, of those who 
took contracts in all the townships upon the Purchase that were not broken 
into previous to that dale. These lists have been made with a great deal 
of care and labor, and yet, there are undoubtedly many errors in them. 
Contracts in many instances, were in ,the name of those who never became 
settlers, and in numerous other instances perhaps, there were transfers 
of contracts, the name of the actual settler not appearing upon the contract 
books. Although there are in these tabular lists, and in various other 
forms, the names of four or five thousand of the Pioneers upon the Holland 
Purchase, the author has sincerely to regret, in many instances, the 
omission of the names of early, prominent Pioneers. These omissions are 
principally of those who became settlers after January 1st, 1807, and were 

* A principal one. having been that of the State of Mar}'land, as indicated in some 
portions of the work. 



PREFACE. IX 

not the earliest in their respective townships. The Table in the Appendix, 
containing a list of the townships, with reference to towns as they now 
exist, will be found useful, in designating the localities of early settlement. 

EiTors in dates, names, and events, in reference to Pioneer settlement, 
will undoubtedly be found ; in some instances they were unavoidable. They 
have depended, of course, mainly, upon tlie memory of the aged and 
infirm. None but those who have been eno'ao-ed in o-atherinar reminiscences 
from such sources, can know their liability to errror and discrepancies. 
Any two or three will seldom agree in their recollections. In many in- 
stances interesting reminiscences have been omitted, where it was impossible 
to reconcile conflicting statements. It is presumed, upon a consciousness of 
having exercised great care in this respect, that but few material errors will 
be found ; where such exist, and the author is referred to them, they will 
be corrected in a second edition. 

Much as perhaps the necessity of apologies may be indicated throughout 
the work, they will be indulged in but sparingly. Intelligent narrative has 
been the highest mark aimed at in its literary execution. Long accustomed, 
as the author has been, to writing for the newspaper press — a branch of 
composition where a careful weighing of words and sentences is generally 
precluded by exigencies allied to it — he may have brought to his new task 
something of habit thus acquired, and incurred the just criticism of those 
who apply to the work no more than fair tests, or subject it to no more 
than a liberal ordeal. Reared amid the most rugged scenes of Pioneer 
life upon the Holland Purchase, with little of early opportunities for educa- 
tion, beyond those afibrded in the primitive log school house, he can prefer 
no claim to any considerable attainments in scholarship; and submits a 
work to the public, of the character and pretensions of this, not in the 
absence of an anxiety, and a distrust, which may be supposed to arise from 
a consciousness of what he has thus frankly acknowledged. " Literary 
leisure," so essential to the faultless execution of such a task as this has 
been, he has not enjoyed. It is about eighteen months since the collection 
of materials was commenced; during the fore part of that period, a connec- 
tion with a newspaper necessarily divided the time and attention of the 
Author; and since the preparation of the work for the press commenced, 
his own ill health, consequent upon a phyical constitution much impaired, 
and ill health in his family, have been the cause of frequent interruptions. 
Much the largest portion of the work has been prepared since the printing 
commenced. All this is not intended to disarm any just and fair criticism; 
but may perhaps, with some propriety, be preferred to break the force of 
technical cavilling, or the asperities of faultfinding, if they are encountered. 

It only remains to make personal acknowledgments of the kind offices 
and essential aids of those who have cooperated in the enterprise: — To 



X PREFACE. 

the Hon. Washington Hunt, of Niagara, for early encouragement to 
embark in it, and generous assistance, whenever needed, in its progress; 
and to the Hon. Hiram Gardner, of Lockport, and the Hon. Wm. Buel, 
of Rochester, the Author is under hke obhgations. To his brother, C. P. 
Turner, Esq. of Black Rock, who, in various ways, has lent his zealous 
cooperation and assistance. 

To Lyman C. Draper, Esq. a resident of Philadelphia, but a native of 
the Holland Purchase, for essential aid in procuring valuable and rare 
materials for the work. Leaving this region an ambitious boy, in search of 
an education ; that acquired, he engaged in historical researches, and now 
enjoys a well earned fame for valuable contributions to American history. 
Apprised of the Author's intention to commence this work, prompted by 
private friendship, and a laudable zeal to aid in the history of the region 
in which his parents were Pioneers, he has volunteered to search the ar- 
chives of historical societies, and give to the work the benefit of his discov- 
eries. He is now engaged in Philadelphia, in preparing for the press " The 
Life and Times of Gen. George Rogers Clark, of Kentucky," and intends 
to follow it up with histories of others of the prominent pioneers of the 
Valley of the Mississippi. 

To 0. H. Marshall, Esq. of Buffalo, for free access to a library, in 
which he has gratified a highly cultivated literary taste, by the accumula- 
tion of rare works, in various departments of American history. Meeting 
him as a stranger, the Author has found in him a friend, patiently and 
generously, from time to time, cooperating in his enterprise, and giving 
him the benefit of his more than ordinary familiarity with early Colonial 
history, and all that relates to our immediate predecessors, the Seneca 
Iroquois. 

To Ebenezer Mix, Esq. of Batavia, for the benefit of his long familiar 
acquaintance with the Holland Purchase, and the details of the Land 
Office, in the preparation of the Maps, the Topographical Sketch, and the 
deduction of title in the Appendix. To Gov. Cass, of Michigan, and the 
Hon. Henry C. Murphy, of Long Island, for the possession of books and 
pamphlets, essential to the work. To James D. Bemis, Esq. of Canan- 
daigua, the respected Father of the Press of Western New York, for early 
cooperation in the enterprize ; aud to Judge Oliver Phelps, of the same 
place, for free access to the papers of his grandfather, the patroon of 
settlement, whose brief biography is given in the body of the work. To 
the Members of the Buffalo Young Men's Association, for the benefit of 
free access to their extensive Library, and all the facilities their praise- 
worthy institution afforded. To Henry O'Rielly, Esq. for the possession 
of valuable papers that he had accumulated with reference to an historical 
enterprise that it is hoped he will yet find leisure to consummate. To the 



PREFACE, XI 

young friend of the author, Daniel W. Ballou, Jr. of Lockport, whom 
he transferred from his place as compositor in a printing office, to assist 
him as a copyist; for aid in historical researches he had so well qualified 
himself to render, by early studious habits, and an employment of his 
leisure hours in the laudable pursuit of knowledge. To all, who are 
identified in the body of the work, as having lent their cooperation and 
assistance ; and especially to such surviving Pioneers as have cheerfully 
o'iven the author the benefit of their recollections. 

The Author closes with an acknowledgement of his obhgations to the 
enterprising Printers and Publishers, Messrs. Jewett, Thomas, & Co. 
prompted as well by a sense of gratitude for then- uniform personal 
courtesy and kindness, as by the gratification which is derived from seeing 
his work go out from their hands so good a specimen of the progress of 
the art of typography upon the Holland Purchase ; and so creditable to a 
craft with which he has himself been so long identified. 

Note. — The Portraits in the work are mostly daguerreotype transfers from oil paint« 
ings, made at the Gallery of Messrs. Evans & Powelson, Buffalo. To the correctness 
of tho transfers, their excellence is in a great measure to be attributed; though their 
after execution is regarded as a creditable specimen of the progress of the art of Litho- 
graphy in the United States. The artists employed upon the illustrations are indicated 
by their njiraes. 



INDEX. 



Page. 
Ancient Pre-occupants of Western N. 

York, 17 

Ancient Relics, 19 

Ancient Battle Field, 30 

Aurora, remains and implements found 30 

An aged Indian, 31 

Ancient works at Lancaster and Shelby 35 

Antiquity of the Iroquois, 48 

Arrangement of Tribes at the Council 

Fires, 59 

AUouez, Ill, 113 

Aix La Chappelle, treaty of 1748, 177 

Amherst, General 205, 217 

Account of a French Colony, 1655, 243 

Arnold, Benedict 272 

Alden, Col 275 

Allan, Ebenezer 296 

Autrechy, Alex'r 414 

Alexander, 531 

Allegany County, 579 

AtUca 532 

BrebeuPs journev to the Neuter Nation 65 

Biart, Father. ..'. 99 

Barre, De La 137 

Blacksmith's Tradition, 150 

Burnet, Gov. William 175 

Barnwell 179 

Bradstreet, Col 204, 233, 234 

Brief notices of events under English 

dominion, 226 

V Battle near Buffalo, 231 

Burnt Ship Bay 233 

Border Wars of the Revolution, 253 

Brant — Thayendanega, 259 

Brant, John.' 263 

Butler, Col. Zebulon 274 

Butler, Col. John 274, 278 

Boyd, Lieut 279 

Butler, Walter 282 

Brief Biographical Sketches, 286 

Butler, Thomas 317 

Bruff, Capt 348 

Butler, Richard 349 

Boughton, Jarcd 378 



Page. 

Blackman, Mrs 386 

Barton, Bonj 392 

Brisbane, James 416 

Buffalo, ". '418, 498 

Burr, Aaron 419 

Busti, Paul 426 

Batavia, 464, 545 

Bush, Wm. H 471 

Blacksnake, Gov 509 

Brief reminiscences of the war of 1812 584 

Burning of Buffalo, 597 

Buffalo Gazette 601 

Brown, Major General, 608 

Bouck, Wm. C 631 

Changes of time, 19 

Clinton, Do Witt 20, 623 

Cuisick's History, (note) 29 

Captives of the Iroquois, 45 

Council of the League, 50 

Civil and Militarj- Relations of the 

Iroquois, 52 

Consanguinity of the Iroquois, 56 

Cabot, John and Sebastian 71 

Cortereal, Caspar 72 

Cartier, James 77, 79 

Champlain, Samuel 84, 109 

Company of New France, 108 

Colonists of New France, (note) 109 

Colbert, 112 

Charlevoix's Description of Niagara 

Falls, 194 

Crown Point, 216 

Church at Lewiston, 265 

Campbell, Mrs. (note) 276 

Clinton, General James 277 

Chamberlin, Hinds 321 

Cornplanter's Speech, 335 

Culver, Oliver 387 

Cazenove, Theophilus 425 

Commencement of settlement and its 

Progress to 1812, 445 

Chapin, Cyrenius 452,598 

Clinton, Gov. George 466, 620 

Chipman, Lemuel 481 



INDEX. 



XIU 



Page. 

Cook, Lemuel 496 

Crouse, Peter R 510 

Cuba, 538 

Coon, Alexander 552 

Carpenter, Rev. James 553 

Carey, Ebenezer 568 

Chautauque County, 576 

Cattaraugus County, 578 

Cook, Lothrop and Bates 592 

Cass's visit to Niagara Frontier, 604 

Commerce of the Upper Lakes, 638 

Colles, Christopher 619 

Dominion of the Iroquois, 41 

Decay of the Iroquois, 43 

Discoveries by Europeans, accidental 90 
De Laet's Description of New Neth- 
erlands, 91 

Dutch trade w^ith the Natives, 91 

Duhaut, 131 

Dulbut, 137 

Dongan, Gov 138, 158, 162 

De Nonville's Expedition, 143 

Dallion, Joseph De La Roche 192 

Dieskau, 200 

Du Quesne, Fort 205 

Devil's Hole, 227 

Dorchester's, Lord, Indian Speech,... 342 

Dunham, Gideon 467 

Dunn, Jeptha 497 

Doolittle, Ormus and Reuben 533 

Douglass' description of Buffalo 606 

Equality of the Iroquois Confederacy, 59 
Early European Voyages and Discov- 
eries, 71 

Exports of Fur 91 

Early Notices of Niagara Falls, 192 

Early glimpses of Western New York, 236 

Ellicott, Joseph 404, 412, 430 

Ellicott, Benjamin 408, 432 

Ellicott, Andrew 432 

Evans, David E 442 

Egleston, George 414 

Eddy, David 475 

Erie County, 575 

Erie Canal 617 

Eddy, Thomas 624 

Fort Hill 31, 152 

Franciscans, 93 

First vessels upon the Upper Lakes, 116 

Frontenac, Count 137, 162, 170, 172 

Frontenac, Fort 161 

Fur Trade, 223 

Farmers Brother 230, 291 

Fairbanks, Joshua 319 

Frontier Posts after peace of 1783,. . . 338 
First assault and battery case in Buffalo 414 
First crops raised on the Holland 

Purchase, 420 

Foster, Mrs. Anna 470 



Page. 
First settlers on the Holland Purchase, 
from the commencement of land 

sales to 1807, 454 - 

First settlers in townships, from 1808 

to 1821, 526 

Farmersville, 540 

Fillmore, Rev. Gleason 546 

Fort Niagara 183, 206, 590 

Geographical position of the Iroquois, 42 

Goshnold 80 

Griffin, the 121, 126, 133 

Garangula 138, 142 

Graffenried, 178 

Greenhalph, Wentworth 236 

Gansevoort, Col 269, 272 

Glimpses of Western New York after 

the Revolution, 310 

Gould, John 313 

Gorham, Nathaniel 329 

Green, John 508 

Garnsev, Hon. D. G 511, 642 

Griffith", Eli 516 

Griffin, John 538 

Genesee County 574 

Human bones excavated, 27 

Ho-de-no-sau-nee 42 

Henry Vn, 71 

Hochelaga 78 

Hunt, Capt 81 

Hudson, Henry 82, 87 

Hennepin's account of La Salle's boat, 119 

Hennepin, 129 

Hennepin's account of the Falls, 193 

Hudson Bay Company, 222 

Herkimer, General, 268 

Hopkins, Silas 310 

Hosmer, Timothy 376 

Historical Deduction of Holland Com- 
pany Title, 401 

Haudecour 414 

Howell, Hon. Nathaniel W 417 

Hamilton, Alexander 418 

Hopkins, Gen'l Timothy S 421 

Holland Co's. West Geneseo Lands, 424 

Hurd, Reuben 497 

Hoops, Maj. Adam 504 

Hart, Joseph 554 

Hall, Genera! 594 

Hawley, Jesse 621, 629 

Holley, Myron 626 

Indications of preceding Races, 18 

Indian Burial Grounds, 26 

Indian Remains on Genesee River, 36 

Iroquois or Five Nations, 40 

Independence of each Indian Nation, 51 

Iroquois La-ws of Descent, 56 

Indian Treatment of Children, 64 

Indian Trade 175 

Indian Treaties for Lands, 304 



XIV 



INDEX. 



Page. 

Joliet 114, 117 

Joutel 132 

Joncaire, 184, 186 

Journal of the Seige of Fort Niagara, 209 
Johnson, Sir William. 217, 228, 233, 247 

Johnson, Guy 255 

Johnson, Sir John 265, 267 

Jones, Horatio 286 

Jemison, Mar\- 293 

Jemison, John 295 

Johnston, Capt. Wm 41 1 , 498 

Kienuka, 26 

Kah-Kwahs 30 

Kirkland's Visit to Genesee, 36 

Kirkland's Observations on Indian 

Remains, 37 

Kirkland, Rev. Samuel 238 

Kelsey, Jehiel 383 

Kemp, Burgoyne 387 

L'AIlemant, 65 

Letters Patent, 81 

Leon, Ponce De 90 

Loyola, Ignatius 95 

La Salle, 116 

L'Archiveque 131 

La Hontan's Account of De Nonville's 

Expedition, 147 

La Hontan's Account of Niagara Falls, 157 

La Force, (note) 210 

Lindsay, 24G 

Laincourt, La Rochefoucauld 318 

Land Titles, 325 

Lessee Company's Claims, (note).. . 337 

Lewiston ". 420 

Loomis, Chauncev 485 

Lost Boy, ". 486 

Le Couteulx 501 

Lockport, Prominent Settlers 551 

Lovejoy, Mrs 599 

Mountain Ridge, 26 

Missions among the Iroquois, 41 

Marriage Regulations, 54 

Marquette, 112 

Mercer, Col 201 

Montcalm 202, 214 

Murray, Gen'l 217 

Massacre of Wyoming, 274 • 

Mountpleasaiit, John 314 

Morris, Robert 349 

Morris Purchase 390 

Morris's Reserve, 397 

McKay, John 381 

Mile Strip, 409 

McKain, James 487 

Morrison, Major John 494 

Molyneux, William 496 

Mather, David 498 

Marshall, Mrs 510 i 

McMahan, Col. James 511 



Page. 

Maxon, Joseph 534 

Methodist Church, 547 

McCall, James 536 

Mathews, James 555 

Mix, Ebenezer 567 

McClure, Gen 589 

Names of the Iroquois Confederacy, . . 40 

Naming of children, 58 

Neuter Nation, 65 

Number of Jesuit Missionaries, 103 

North West Company, 223 

Noble, Russell 468 

New Amsterdam, 500 

Niagara County, 582 

Newark ' 589 

Original Nations of the Iroquois, 40 

Order of the Jesuits, 95 

Oswego, 175, 202 

Oglethrop, Gen 176 

Onondagas, destruction of. 281 

Otto, Jacob S 441 

O'Fling, Patrick 467 

Olean Point, 506 

Organization of Courts, 521 

Oil Springs 539 

Oak Orchard, 558 

Orleans County, 581 

Poem, 23 

Power and bravery of the Iroquois, ... 43 

Periods of holding Council Fires, 60 

Plymouth Compan}-, 81 

Protestant Missionaries of New Eng- 
land, 99 

Pallisades of Fort Niagara 134 

Pitt, William 203 

Prideaux, Gen 206 

Pontiac, 218, 235 

Palatines, 245 

Palatine Committee, 254 

Parrish, Jasper 292 

Pickering, Timothy 307 

Progress of settlement westward after 

the Revolution, 304 

Pemberton, James 316 

Phelps and Gorliam's purchase, 325 

Pultnev, Sir WiUiam 327 

Phelps", Oliver 328 

Porter, Augustus 358, 489 

Porter's Narrative, 361 

Pitts, Capt. Peter 385 

Pine Grove, 446 

Palmer, James R 454 

Palmer, Joseph 466 

Peters, T. C 547 

Pioneer Settler upon the Holland Pur- 
chase and his progress, 562 

Phelps and Chipman's purchase, 481 

Peacock, William 569 

Porter, Peter B 611 



INDEX. 



XV 



Page. 

Ring Fort 29 

Romans of the West, 47 

Representatives of the Iroquois, 49 

Roche, Francis De La 79 

Raleigh, Sir Walter 80, 90 

Ralle, Father 105 

Reminiscences of Fort Niagara, 188 

Rogers, Major 218 

Red Jacket and Lafayette, (note) .... 305 

Ransom, Asa and Ehas 453 

Rhea, Alexander 467 

Ridge Road, 497 

Rushford, 535 

Rawson, Solomon 537 

Riddle, Lieut 598 

Structure of the Iroquois Confederacy, 48 

Senecas and Fries, 69 

Smith, John 81 

Slowness of Colonization, 89 

Schenectady, 164 

Shirley, Gov 201 

Seige of Fort Niagara, 206 

Stanwix, Gon'l 205 

Schlosser, Fort (note) 227 

Stedman, John 229 

St. Leger, Gen'l 269 

Schuyler, Gen'l 267 

Schuyler, Han Yost 272 

Sullivan's Expedition, 277 

Steuben, Baron 338 

Simcoe, Governor 341 

Scotch Colony 380 

Surveys, 404 

Stevens, James 474 

Sheldon, 482 

Slayton, Joshua 495 

Salt Works, 558 

State of the frontier at the beginning 

of the War 585 

St. John, Mrs 599 

Sortie of Fort Erie, 606 

Tonawanda Island, 34 

Territory of the Iroquois, 41 

Treatment of Prisoners among the 

Indians, 45 

Tradition of the Senecas, 46 

Ta-do-da-hoh 50 

Tribes of the Iroquois, 53 



Page. 

Trails, 62 

Tonti 118 

Tuscaroras, 177 

Treaty of 1763, 219 

Treatv of Fort Stanwix, 1784 304 

Tax Roll, 390 

Turner, Roswell 481 

Turner, Otis 557 

Topography of the Holland Purchase, 570 

Unanimity of the Iroquois Council, . . 61 

Utrecht, treaty of 174 

Verrazana, 72 

Victor, 145 

Vaudreuil, 170, 216 

Van Schaick, 281 

Van Campen, 288 

Variation of the Magnetic Needle, 

(note,) 407 

Vander Kemp, John J 429 

Van Horn, Judge 551 

Washington, (note,) 200, 619 

Wilhams, Col. Ephraim 200 

Wolfe, Gen. James 205, 213 

Walpole, 177 

West, Dr. Joseph 188 

Womp 240 

Willett,Co.l 271, 282 

Williamson, Charles 329, 417 

Wayne, Gen 344 

Wilkenson, Gen. James 446 

Winne, 418 

Walthers, Frederick 420 

Warren, Gen. William 473 

Warren, Mrs 488 

Wilder, John 479 

Walsworth, James 517 

Wilson, Reuben 548, 593 

Whitney, Gen 559 

Wyoming County, 580 

Wadsworth, Gen 587 

Walden, Judge 598 

Watson, Elkanah 620 

Wilkeson, Samuel 643 

Yonnondio, 152 

Young, John 469 



INDEX TO APPENDIX AND NOTES. 



Albion, 658 

Ancient Remains, 663 

Black Rock, 653 

Brant's Birthplace, 664 

Brace, Orange 665 

Battle of Buffalo, 665 



Canal Villages, C53 

Clerks in Land Office, 663 

Deduction of Title from Robert Morris 
to Holland Company, 646 

Ellicott's Monument, 659 



XVI 



INDEX. 



Expeditions of Gen. Sullivan and Col. 
Brodhead — Cotemporary Records in 

possession of D. W. Ballon, Jr. . . . 660 

Ellicott's Ancestors, 665 

Fort Porter, 666 

German Emigrants, 662 

Islands in Niagara River, 663 

Indian Burial at Black Rock, 664 

Joncaire's Sons, 664 

Joncaire and the Oil Springs 666 

Lockport, 654 

Middleport 657 

Medina 658 

Middlebury Academy, 664 



Page. 
Marshall's Communications to the 
Historical Society, 664 

Ogden Pre-emption, 662 

Pioneer Printers upon the Holland 
Purchase, 663 

Sequel of Holland Company's Invest- 
ment, 661 

Smith, Richard 662 

Sainted Seneca Maiden, 664 

Sources of Morris's Biography, 665 

Townships of the Holland Purchase, • 651 
Tonawanda, 653 

Williamson, Charles 665 

Warren, Gen 665 



PART FIRST, 



CHAPTER I 



THE ANCIENT PRE-OCCUPANTS OF THE REGION OF WESTERN 
NEW-YORK. 



The local historian of almost our entire continent, finds at the 
threshold of the task he enters upon, difficulties and embarrass- 
ments. If for a starting point the first advent of civilization is 
chosen, a summary disposition is made of all that preceded it, 
unsatisfactory to author and reader. Our own race was the suc- 
cessor of others. Here in our own region, when the waters of the 
Niagara were first disturbed by a craft of European architecture 
— when the adventurous Frenchman would first pitch a tent upon 
its banks, there were "lords of the Forests and the Lakes" to be 
consulted. — Where stood that humble primitive "pallisade," its site 
grudgingly and suspiciously granted, in process of time arose strong 
walls — ramparts, from behind which the armies of successive 
nations have been arranged to repel assailants. The dense forests 
that for more than a century enshrouded them, unbroken by the 
woodman's axe, have now disappeared, or but skirt a peaceful and 
beautiful cultivated landscape. Civilization, improvement and 
industry, have made an Empire of the region that for a long period 
was tributary to this nucleus of early events. Cities have been 
founded — the Arts, Sciences taught; — Learning has its temples 
and its votaries; History its enlightened and earnest enquirers. 
And yet, with the pre-occupant lingering until even now in our 
midst, we have but the unsatisfactory knowledge of him and his 
race, which is gathered from dim and obscure tradition. That 
which is suited to the pages of fiction and romance, but can be 
incorporated in the pages of history, only with suspicion and dis- 
trust. The learned and the curious have from time to time 
enquired of their old men ; they have set down in their wigwams 



18 HISTORY OF THE 

and listened to their recitals; the pages of history have been 
searched and compared with their imperfect revelations, to discover 
some faint coincidence or analogy; and yet we know nothing of 
the origin, and have but unsatisfactory traditions of the people we 
found here, and have almost dispossessed. 

If their own history is obscure; if their relations of themselves, 
after they have gone back but little more than a century beyond 
the period of the first European emigration, degenerates to fable 
and obscure tradition; they are but poor revelatorsof a still greater 
mystery. We are surrounded by evidences that a race preceded 
them, farther advanced in civilization and the arts, and far more 
numerous. Here and there upon the brows of our hills, at the 
head of our ravines, are their fortifications; their locations selected 
with skill, adapted to refuge, subsistence and defence. The up- 
rooted trees of our forest, that are the growth of centuries, expose 
their mouldering remains; the uncovered mounds masses of their 
skeletons promiscuously heaped one upon the othei', as if they were 
the gathered and hurriedly entombed of well contested fields. In 
our vallies, upon our hill sides, the plough and the spade discover 
their rude implements, adapted to war, the chase, and domestic use. 
All these are dumb yet eloquent chronicles of by-gone ages. 
We ask the red man to tell us from whence they came and whither 
they went? and he either amuses us with wild and extravagant 
traditionary legends, or acknowledges himself as ignorant as his 
interrogators. He and his progenitors have gazed upon these 
ancient relics for centuries, as we do now, — wondered and consul- 
ted their wise men, and yet ho is unable to aid our inquiries. We 
invoke the aid of revelation, turn over the pages of history, trace 
the origin and dispersion of the races of mankind from the earliest 
period of the world's existence, and yet we gather only enough to 
form the basis of vague surmise and conjecture. The crumbling 
walls — the " Ruins," overgrown by the gigantic forests of Central 
America, are not involved in more impenetrable obscurity, than are 
the more humble, but equally interesting mounds and relics that 
abound in our own region. 

We are prone to speak of ourselves as the inhabitants of a new 
world; and yet we are confronted with such evidences of antiquity! 
We clear away the forests and speak familiarly of subduing a 
'^ virgin soil;" — and yet the plough up-turns the skulls of those 
whose history is lost ! We say that Columbus discovered a new 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 19 

world. Why not that he helped to make two old ones acquainted 
with each other 1 

Our advent here is but one of the changes of tiime. We are 
consulting dumb signs, inanimate and unintelligible witnesses, 
gleaning but unsatisfactory knowledge of races that have preceded 
us. Who in view of earth's revolutions; the developments that 
the young but rapidly progressive science of Geology has made; 
the organic remains that are found in the alluvial deposits in our 
vallies, deeply embedded under successive strata of rock in our 
mountain ranges; the impressions in our coal formations; history's 
emphatic teachings; fails to reflect that our own race may not be 
exempt from the operations of vi^hat may be regarded as general 
laws? Who shall say that the scholar, the antiquarian, of another 
far off century, may not be a ChampoUion deciphering the inscrip- 
tions upon our monuments, — or a Stevens, wandering among the 
ruins of our cities, to gather relics to identify our existence ? 

" Since the first sun-light spread itself o'er earth ; 
Since Chaos gave a thousand systems birth ; 
Since first the morning stars together sung ; 
Since first this globe was on its axis hung ; 
Untiring change, with ever moving hand. 
Has waved o'er earth its more than magic wand."* 

Although not peculiar to this region, there is perhaps no portion 
of the United States where ancient relics are more numerous. 
Commencing principally near the Oswego River, they extend 
westwardly over all the western counties of our State, Canada 
West, the western Lake Region, the vallies of the Ohio and the 
Mississippi. Either as now, the western portion of our State had 
attractions and inducements to make it a favorite residence; or 
these people, assailed from the north and the east, made this a refuge 
in a war of extermination, fortified the commanding eminences, 
met the shock of a final issue; were subject to its adverse results. 
Were their habits and pursuits mixed ones, their residence was 
well chosen. The Forest invited to the chase; the Lakes and 
Rivers to local commerce, — to the use of the net and the angUng 
rod; the soil, to agriculture. The evidences that this was one at 
least, of their final battlegrounds, predominate. They are the for- 
tifications, entrenchments, and warlike instruments. That here 
was a war of extermination, we may conclude, from the masses 

* "Changes of Time," a Poem by B. B. French. 



Sb HISTORY OF THE 

of human skeletons we find indiscriminately thrown together, in- 
dicating a common and simultaneous sepulture; from which age, 
infancy, sex, no condition, was exempt. 

In assuming that these are the remains of a people other than 
the Indian race we found here, the author has the authority of De 
Witt Clinton, — a name scarcely less identified with our htera- 
ture, than with our achievements in internal improvements. In a 
discourse delivered before the New-York Historical Society in 
1811, Mr. Clinton says: — "Previous to the occupation of this 
country by the progenitors of the present race of Indians, it was 
inhabited by a race of men much more populous, and much farther 
advanced in civilization." Indeed the abstract position may be 
regarded as conceded. Who they were, whence they came, and 
whither they went, have been themes of speculation with learned 
antiquarians, who have failed to arrive at any satisfactory conclu- 
sions. In a field, or historical department, so ably and thoroughly 
explored, the author would not venture opinions or theories of his 
own, even were it not a subject of enquiry in the main, distinct 
from the objects of his work. It is a topic prolific enough, of 
reflection, enquiry and speculation, for volumes, rather than an 
incidental historical chapter. And yet, it is a subject of too much 
local interest, to be wholly passed over. A liberal extract from 
the historical discourse of Mr. Clinton, presents the matter in a 
concise form, and while it will serve as a valuable memento of a 
venerated Scholar, Statesman, and Public Benefactor; the theories 
and conclusions are far more consistent and reasonable than any 
others that have f^xllen under the autbor's observation: — 

"I have seen several of these works in the western part of this 
state. . There is a large one in the town of Onondaga, one in 
Pompey, and another in Manlius; one in Camillus, eight miles from 
Auburn; one in Scipio, six miles, another one mile, and one about 
half a mile from that village. Between the Seneca and Cayuga 
Lakes there are several — three within a few miles of each other. 
Near the village of Canandaigua there arc three. In a word, they 
arc scattered all over that countiy. 

"These forts were, generally speaking, erected on the most 
commanding ground. The walls or breastworks were earthen. 
The ditches were on the exterior of works. On some of the para- 
pets, oak trees were to be seen, which, from the number of con- 
centric circles, must have been standing 150, 260, and 300 years; 
and there were evident indications, not only that they had sprung 
up since the creation of those works, but that they were at least a 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 21 

second growth. The trenches were in some cases deep and wide, 
and in others shallow and narrow; and the breastworks varied in 
altitude from three to eight feet. They sometimes had one, and 
sometimes two entrances, as was to be inferred from there being 
no ditch at those places. When the works were protected by a 
deep ravine or a large stream of water no ditch was to be seen. 
The areas of these forts varied from two to six acres; and the 
form was generally an irregular elipsis; and in some of them frag- 
ments of earthenware and pulverized substances, supposed to have 
been originally human bones, were to be found. 

"These fortifications, thus difl'used over the interior of our 
country, have been generally considered as surpassing the skill, 
patience, and industry of the Indian race, and various hypotheses 
have been advanced to prove them of European origin. 

"An American writer of no inconsiderable repute pronounced 
some years ago that the two forts at the confluence of the Muskin- 
gum and Ohio Rivers, one covering forty and the other twenty 
acres, were erected by Ferdinand de Soto, who landed with 1000 
men in Florida in 1539, and penetrated a considerable distance into 
the interior of the country. He allotted the large fort for the use of 
the Spanish army; and after being extremely puzzled how to dis- 
pose of the small one in its vicinity, he at last assigned it to the 
swine that generally, as he says, attended the Spaniards in those 
days — being in his opinion very necessary, in order to prevent them 
from becoming estrays, and to protect them from the depredations 
of the Indians. 

"When two ancient forts, one containing six and the other three 
acres, were found in Lexington in Kentucky, another theory was 
propounded; and it was supposed that they were erected by the 
descendants of the Welsh colonists who are said to have migrated 
under the auspices of Madoc to this country, in the twelfth century; 
that they formerly inhabited Kentucky; but, being attacked by 
the Indians, were forced to take refuge near the sources of the 
Missouri. 

"Another suggestion has been made, that the French^ in their 
expeditions from Canada to the Mississippi, were the authors of 
these works; but the most numerous are to be found in the teri'itory 
of the Senecas, whose hostility to the French was such, that they 
were not allowed for a long time to have any footing among them.* 
The fort at Niagara was obtained from them by the intrigues and 
eloquence of Joncaire, an adopted child of the nation. f 

"Lewis Dennic, a Frenchman, aged upward of seventy, and who 
had been settled and married among the Confederates for more 
than half a century, told me (1810)that, according to the traditions 
of the ancient Indians, these forts were erected by an army of 
Spaniards, who were the first Europeans ever seen by them — the 

* 1 Golden, p. 61. t 3 Charlevoix, letter 15, p. 227. 



22 HISTORY OF THE 

French the next — then the Dutch — and, finally, the English; that 
this army first appeared at Oswego in great force; and penetrated 
through the interior of the country, searching for the precious 
metals; that they continued there two years, and went down the 
Ohio. 

*' Some of the Senecas told Mr. Kirkland, the missionary, that 
those in their territory were raised by their ancestors in their wars 
with the western Indians, three, four, or five hundred years ago. 
All the cantons have traditions that their ancestors came originally 
from the west; and the Senecas say that theirs first settled in the 
country of the Creeks. The early histories mention that the Iro- 
quois first inhabited on the north side of the great lakes; that they 
were driven to their present territory in a war with the Algonkins 
or Adirondacks, from whence they expelled the Satanas. If these 
accounts are correct, the ancestors of the Senecas did not, in all 
probability, occupy their present territory at the time they allege. 

"I believe we may confidently pronounce that all the hypotheses 
which attribute those works to Europeans are incorrect and fanciful 
— first, on account of the present number of the works; secondly, 
on account of their antiquity; having from every appearance, been 
erected a long time before the discovery of America; and, finally, 
their form and manner are totally variant from European fortifica- 
tions, either in ancient or modern times. 

"It is equally clear that they were not the work of the Indians. 
Until the Senecas, who are renowned for their national vanity, 
had seen the attention of the Americans attracted to these erections, 
and had invented the fabulous account of which I have spoken, the 
Indians of the present day did not pretend to know anything about 
their origin. They were beyond the reach of all their traditions, 
and were lost in the abyss of unexplored antiquity. 

" The erection of such prodigious works must have been the 
result of labor far beyond the patience and perseverance of our 
Indians; and the form and materials are entirely diflferent from 
those which they are known to make. These earthen walls, it is 
supposed^ will retain their original form much longer than those 
constructed with brick and stone. They have undoubtedly been 
greatly diminished by the washing away of the earth, the filHng up 
of the interior, and ihe accumulation of fresh soil: yet their firm- 
ness and solidity indicate them to be the work of some remote age. 
Add to this, that the Indians have never practiced the mode of 
fortifying by intrenchments. Their villages or castles were pro- 
tected by palisades, which affl^rd a sufficient defence aginst Indian 
weapons. When Cartier went to Hochelaga, now Montreal, in 
1535, he discovered a town of the Iroquois, or Hurons, contaim'ng 
about fifty huts. It was encompassed with three lines of palisadoes, 
through which was one entrance, well secured with stakes and bars. 
On the inside was a rampart of timber, to which were ascents by 
ladders; and heaps of stones were laid in proper places to cast at 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 23 

an enemy. Charlevoix and other writers agree in representing the 
Indian fortresses as fabricated with wood. JSuch, also, were the forts 
of Sassacus. the great chief of the Pequots; and the principal for- 
tress of the Narragansets was on an island in a swamp, of live or 
six acres of rising land: the sides were made with palisades set 
upright, encompassed with a hedge of a rod in thickness.*^ 

"I have already alluded to the argument for the great antiquity of 
those ancient forts to be derived from the number of concentric cir- 
cles. On the ramparts of one of the Muskingum forts, 463 were 
ascertained on a tree decayed at the centre; and there are likewise 
the strongest marks of a former growth of a similar size. This 
would make those works near a thousand years old. 

''But there is another consideration which has never before been 
urged, and which appears to me to be not unworthy of attention. 
It is certainly novel, and I believe it to be founded on a basis which 
cannot easily be subverted. 

"From the Genesee near Rochester to Lewiston on the Niagara, 
there is a remarkable ridge or elevation of land running almost the 
whole distance, which is seventy-eight miles, and in a direction 
from east to west. Its general altitude above the neighbouring- 
land is thirty feet, and its width varies considerably; in some places 
it is not more than forty yards. Its elevation above the level of 
Lake Ontario is perhaps 160 feet, to which it decends with a gradual 
slope; and its distance from that water is between six and ten miles. 
This remarkable strip of land would appear as if intended by nature 
for the purpose of an easy communication. It is, in fact, a stupen- 
dous natural turnpike, descending gently on each side, and covered 
with gravel; and but little labour is requisite to make it the best 
road in the United States. When the forests between it and the 
lake are cleared, the prospect and scenery which will be afforded 
from a tour on this route to the Cataract of Niagara will surpass all 
competition for sublimity and beauty, variety and number. 

" There is every reason to believe that this remarkable ridge was 
the ancient boundary of this great lake. The gravel with which it 
is covered was deposited there by the waters; and the stones every- 
where indicate by their shape the abrasion and agitation produced 
by that element. All along the borders of the western rivers and 
lakes there are small mounds or heaps of gravel of a conical form, 
erected by the fish for the protection of their spawn; these fishbanks 
are found in a state that cannot be mistaken, at the foet of the ridge, on 
the side towards the lake ; on the opposite side none have been dis- 
covered. All rivers and streams which enter the lake from the south 
have their mouths effected with sand in a peculiar way, from the 
prevalence and power of the northwesterly winds. The points of 
the creeks which pass through this ridge correspond exactly in 
appearance with the entrance of the streams into the lakes. These 

* Mather's Magnalia, p. 693. 



'i4 HISTORY OF THE 

facts evince beyond doubt that Lake Ontario has, perhaps, one or 
two thousand years ago, receded from this elevated ground. And 
the cause of this retreat must be ascribed to its having enlarged its 
former outlet, or to its imprisoned w^aters (aided, probably, by an 
earthquake) forcing a passage dov^^n the present bed of the St. Law^- 
rence, as the Hudson did at the Highlands, and the Mohawk at Lit- 
tle Falls. On the south side of this great ridge, in its vicinity, and 
in all directions through this country, the remains of numerous forts 
are to be seen; but on the north side, that is, on the side towards 
the lake, not a single one has been discovered, although the whole 
ground has been carefully explored. Considering the distance to 
be, say seventy miles in length, and eight in breadth, and that the 
border of the lake is the very place that would be selected for 
habitation, and consequently for works of defence, on account of the 
facilities it would afford for subsistence, for safety, and all domestic 
accommodations and military purposes; and that on the south shores 
of Lake Erie those ancient fortresses exist in great number, there 
can be no doubt that these works were erected when this ridge was 
the southern boundary of Lake Ontario, and, consequently, that their 
origin must be sought in a very remote age. 

"A great part of North America was then inhabited by populous 
nations, who had made considerable advances in civilization. These 
numerous works could never have been supplied with provisions 
without the aid of agriculture. Nor could they have been con- 
structed without the use of iron or copper, and without a persever- 
ance, labour, and design which demonstrate considerable progress 
in the arts of civilized life. A learned writer has said, " I perceive 
no reason why the Asiatic North might not be an officina virorum, 
as well as the European, The overteeming country to the cast of 
the Ripha^an Mountains must find it necessary to discharge its inhab- 
itants. The first great wave of people was forced forward by the 
next to it, more tumid and more powerful than itself: successive and 
new impulse?; continually arriving, short rest was given to that 
which spread over a more eastern tract: disturbed again and again, 
it covered fresh regions. At length, reaching the farthest limits of 
the old world, it found a new one, with ample space to occupy, 
unmolested for ages."* After the north of Asia had thus exhausted 
its exuberant population by such a great migration, it would require 
a very long period of time to produce a co-operation of causes suffi- 
cient to effect another. The first mighty stream of people that flowed 
into Americn must have remained free from external pressure for 
ages. Availing themselves of this period of tranquility, they would 
devote themselves to the arts of peace, make rapid progress in civ- 
ilization, and acquire an immense population. In course of time 
discord and war would rage among them, and compel the establish- 
ment of places of security. At last, they became alarmed by the 

* 1 Pennant's Arctic Zoology, 260. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 25 

irruption of a horde of barbarians, who rushed like an overwhelming 
flood from the north of Asia — 

" A Multitude, like which the populous North 
Poured from her frozen loins to pass 
Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons 
Came like a deluge on the South, and spread 
Beneath Gibraltar to the Lybian sands." * 

"The great law of self-preservation compelled them to stand on 
their defence, to resist these ruthless invaders, and to construct 
numerous and extensive works for protection. And for a long series 
of time the scale of victory was suspended in doubt, and they firmly 
withstood the torrent; but, like the Romans in the decline of their 
empire, they were finally worn down and destroyed by successive 
inroads and renewed attacks. And the fortifications of which we 
have treated are the only remaining monuments of these ancient 
and exterminated nations. This is perhaps, the airy nothing of 
imagination, and may be reckoned the extravagant dream of a vis- 
ionary mind: but may we not, considering the wonderful events of 
the past and present times, and the inscrutable dispensations of an 
overruling Providence, may we not look forward into futurity, and 
without departing from the rigid laws of probability, predict the 
occurrence of similar scenes at some remote period of time? And, 
perhaps, in the decrepitude of our empire, some transcendant genius, 
whose powers of mind shall only be bounded by that impenetrable 
circle which prescribes the Umits of human nature,! may rally the 
barbarous nations of Asia under the standard of a mighty empire. 
Following the track of the Russian colonies and commerce towards 
the northwest coast, and availing himself of the navigation, arms, 
and military skill of civilized nations, he may, after subverting the 
neighbouring despotisms of the Old World, bend his course towards 
European America. The destinies of our country may then be 
decided on the waters of the Missouri or on the banks of Lake 
Superior. And if Asia shall then revenge upon our posterity the 
injuries we have inflicted upon her sons, a new, a long, and a gloomy 
night of Gothic darkness will set in Upon mankind. And when, 
after the efflux of ages, the returning effulgence of intellectual light 

111 "1111 • •/" 

shall again gladden the nations, then the widespread ruins of our 
cloud-capped towers, of our solemn temples, and of our magnificent 
cities, will, like the works of which we have treated, become the 
subject of curious research and elaborate investigation." 

At the early period at which Mr. Clinton advanced the theory that 
the Ridge Road was once the southern shore of Lake Ontario — 181 1 
— when settlement was but just begun, and a dense forest precluded 
a close observation, he was quite liable to fall into the error, that 

* Milton's Paradise Lost. f Roscoe's Lorenzo de Medicis, 241. 



26 HISTORY OF THE 

time and better opportunities for investigation have corrected. 
The formation, composition, alluvial deposits, &c., of the Ridge 
Road, with reference to its two sides, present almost an entire 
uniformity. There is at least, not the distinction that would be 
apparent if there had been the action of water, depositing its mate- 
rials only upon its nothern side. By supposing the Mountain 
Ridge to have once been the southern shore of Lake Ontario, it 
would follow that the Ridge Road may have been a Sand bar. 
The nature of both, their relative positions, would render this a far 
more reasonable hypothesis than the other; and when we add the 
fact that the immediate slope, or falling off, is almost as much gene- 
rally, upon the south as the north side of the Ridge Road, we 
are under the necessity of abandoning the precedent theory. 
There is from the Niagara to the Genesee River, upon the Moun- 
tain Ridge, a line, or cordon, of these ancient fortifications — none, 
as the author concludes, from observation and enquiry, between 
the Ridge and Lake.* 

But a few of the most prominent of these ancient fortifications, 
will be noticed, enough only to give the reader who has not had 
an opportunity of seeing them, a general idea of their structure, 
and relics which almost uniformly may be found in and about them. 

Upon a slope or oflfset of the Mountain Ridge three and a half 
miles from the village of Lewiston, is a marked spot, that the Tus- 
carora Indians call Kienuka.] There is a burial ground, and two 
eliptic mounds or barrows that have a diameter of 20 feet, and an 
elevation of from 4 to 5 feet. A mass of detached works, with 
spaces intervening, seem to have been chosen as a rock citadel; 
and well chosen, — for the mountain fastnesses of Switzerland are 
but little better adapted to the purposes of a look-out and defence. 
The sites of habitations are marked by remains of pottery, pipes, 
and other evidences. 

Eight miles east of this, upon one of the most elevated points of 
the mountain ridge in the town of Cambria, upon the farm until 
recently owned by Eliakim Hammond, now owned by John Gould, 

* Upon an elevation, on the shore of Lake Ontario near the Eighteen-niiie-Creek, 
there is a mound similar in appearance to some of those that have been termed ancient; 
though it is unquestionably incident to the early French and Indian wars of tliis region. 
And the same conclusion may be formed in reference to other similar ones along the 
shore of the lake. 

tMeaning a fort, or strong hold, that has a commanding position, or from which 
there is a fine view. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 27 

is an ancient fortification and burial place, possessing perhaps as 
great a degree of interest, and as distinct characteristics as any that 
have been discovered in Western New York. The author hav- 
ing been one of a party that made a thorough examination of the spot 
soon after its first discovery in 1823, he is enabled" from memory 
and some published accounts of his at the time, to state the extent 
and character of the relics. 

The location commands a view of Lake Ontario and the surround- 
ing country. An area of about six acres of level ground appears to 
have been occupied; fronting which upon a circular verge of the 
mountain, were distinct remains of a wall. Nearly in the centre of 
the area was a depository of the dead. It was a pit excavated to 
the depth of four or five feet, filled with human bones, over which 
were slabs of sand stone. Hundreds seem to have been thrown in 
promiscuously, of both sexes and all ages. Extreme old age was 
distinctly identified by toothless jaws, and the complete absorption 
of the aveola processes; and extreme infancy, by the small skulls 
and incomplete ossification. Numerous barbs or arrow points were 
found among the bones, and in the vicinity. One skull retained the 
arrow that, had pierced it, the aperture it had made on entering being 
distinctly visible. In the position of the skeletons, there was none 
of the signs of ordinary Indian burial; but evidences that the bodies 
were thrown in promiscuously, and at the same time. The conjec- 
ture might well be indulged that it had been the theatre of a san- 
guinary battle, terminating in favor of the assailants, and a general 
massacre, A thigh bone of unusual length, was preserved for a 
considerable period by a physician of Lockport, and excited much 
curiosity. It had been fractured obhquely. In the absence of any 
surgical skill, or at least any application of it, the bone had strongly 
re-united, though evidently so as to have left the foot turned out at 
nearly a right angle. Of course, the natural surfaces of the bone 
were in contact, and not the fractured surfaces; and yet spurs, or 
ligaments were thrown out by nature, in its healing process, and so 
firmly knit and interwoven, as to form, if not a perfect, a firm 
re-union ! It was by no means a finished piece of surgery, but to 
all appearances had answered a very good purpose. The medical 
student will think the patient must have possessed all the fortitude 
and stoicism of his race, to have kept his fractured limb in a neces- 
sary fixed position, during the long months that the healing process 
must have been going on, in the absence of splints and gum elastic 



28 



HISTORY OF THE 



bands. A tree had been cut down growing directly over the mound, 
upon the stump of which could be counted 230 concentric circles. 
Remains of rude specimens of earthen ware, pieces of copper, and 
iron instruments of rude workmanship were ploughed up within the 
area ; also, charred wood, corn and cobs. 

Soon after these ancient relics had begun to excite public atten- 
tion, the author received the following poetic contribution which he 
inserted in the columns of a newspaper of which he was the editor. 
Upon a review of it, he regards it as not unworthy to be preserved 
with the other reminiscences, in a more durable form. From a 
note made at the time, it would seem to have been anonymous : — 

THE ARGUMENT. 

The author's imagination, kindled bj- a description of the mouldering relics, the evi- 
dences of a sanguinary conflict of arms, aided by the then recently published tradi- 
tions of David Cusick, supposes the spirit of an Erie Chieftain, (whose skeleton 
is one of the congregated mass) to rise and address the gazing and enquiring anti- 
quarian: — He reminds him of their common origin and common destiny, notwith- 
standing the lapse of intervening ages ; tkat his ancestors are the races which 
slumber in the vallies of the Caucassus, the Alps, and plains of Britain ; the relator 
assuming that this was the forest home of his fathers. He sketches the last battle, 
fatal to his nation and himself; from the shouts of the victors echoing amid his 
native scenery, he adverts to the disembodied repose of his fathers ; — and concludes 
with the pleasing anticipation of again meeting the disturber of his sleep of ages, 
in "happier regions undefined," when he too shall have finished the pilgrimage 
of mortality. 



"Mortal of other age and clirae. 
Pilgrim not having reach'd the bourne. 

Know thou that kindred soul with thine, 
Once tenanted this mould'ring form. 

Here once the warm blood freely flow'd, 
By the heart's active impulse press'd. 

And all the varied passions glovv'd. 
That struggle in thy throbbing breast. 

Though o'er this crumbling dust of mine, 
Full many a summer's sun has roU'd ; 

Yet equal destiny is thine, 
Though fairer cast of kindred mould. 

E'en though afar thy sires may sleep, 
Beyond the Atlantic's rolling waves 

Where Caucassus' stupendous sleep. 
O'er hangs the shores, the Caspian laves. 

Or where the Alpine glaciers pile, 
High o'er thy Gothic fathers' graves, 

Or where Brittania's verdant isle 
Smiles in the bosom of the waves. 

Deep in Columbia's wilds, afar 
Upon lake Erie's forest shores, 

Where, glimm'ring 'neath the ev'ning star, 
Niagara's awful torrent roars. 



Where the broad plain abrupt descends, 
To where Ontario's billows lave. 

Whence the delighted view extends 
Far o'er the blue and boundless wave; 

There brightly blaz'd my country's fires. 
While oft succeeding ages roll'd. 

And there the ashes of ray sire* 
Lie mingled with the forest mould. 

There on the heights refulgent play'd 
Aurora's brightest, earliest ray ; 

And vesper's milder beams delay'd 
To lengthen the departing day. 

There brightening with the shades of even, 
The hunter's scatter' d watch fires beam'd 

Respondent to the stars of Heaven, 
That o'er my native forests gleamed. 

Gladly would memory restore 
That scenery from oblivion's night. 

Ere from those happy scenes of yore. 
My deathless spirit took its flight. 

The vapours o'er the lake that lour, 
How bright the setting sun display'd. 

When mid those scenes in childhood's hour, 
The boyhood of the village stray'd. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 



29 



Or listen'd as our fathers taught 

To recognize the 'Manitou,' 
Eternal Power with wisdom fraught 

Throughout Creation's boundless view. 

Or as some hoary chieftain told 
The wampum legend of his band, 

Chivalric scenery of old, 
On limpid lake or shaded land. 

When youthful vigor nerv'd my prime. 
How oft I chas'd the bounding deer. 

Or o'er the mountain's height sublime. 
Or tlirough the ravine dark and drear. 

How the melodious echoes rang, 
Responsive tlirough those awful groves, 

When the returning hunter sang 
The ardor of his youthful loves. 

Such were the happy scenes of yore, 

Ere from another world afar. 
Thy fathers sought this western shore, 

Where ocean hides the morning star. 

Those happy scenes, alas ! are o'er. 
Extinguished are my country's tires, 

Where on lake Erie's forest shore. 
Crumble the ashes of my sires. 

The foreign ploughshare rudely drives 
Where sunk in i)eace my fathers rest. 

And a sad remnant scarce survives 
In the dark forests of the west. 

Bid me not further to pursue 

The sad'ning theme that mercy stores, 
And all the murd'rous scenes renew 

That slumber on lake Erie's shores. 



When from toward tlie morning light. 
Along tlie ocean's sounding strand. 

The ' Menque' poured tlieir banded might 
Relentless o'er my native land ; 

Then proudly waved my Eagle plume. 
Amid the foeman's fiercest yell. 

Where, on my struggling country's tomb 
The War Club's bloodiest effort fell. 

Till slowly forced at last to yield 
Unconquer'd in the arms of death. 

Where sunk upon the leaf strown field. 
Her bravest sons resign'd their breath. 

As rising from Ontario's waves. 

Amid the tumult of the fight. 
Pale on the fainting warrior's grave 

The moon beams shed a glim'ring ligbu 

And loudly broke the victor's yell 
Upon the distant torrent's roar, 

And my devoted country's knell 
Re-echoed from the sounding shore. 

Calmly my buoyant spirit ro?e 
High o'er Ihe echoing scenery. 

To join my father's long repose 
In undisturb'd eternity. 

In happier regions undefin'd. 

Where, stranger ! happy we may greet 
In the great Haven of mankind, 

Where mingling generations meet. 

Then we'll the broken tale renew, 
When we shall meet to part no more, 

Our mortal pilgrimage review 
And tell of joys and sorrows o'er." 



At the head of a deep gorge, a mile west of Lockport, (similar to 
the one that forms the natural canal basin, from which the combined 
Locks ascend,) in the early settlement of the country, a circular 
raised work, or ring-fort, could be distinctly traced. Leading from 
the enclosed area, there had been a covered way to a spring of pure 
cold water that issues from a fissure in the rock, some 50 or 60 feet 



Note. — The following^ passage appears in " Cusick's History of the Six Nations," 
the extraordinary production of a native Tuscarora, that it will be necessary to notice 
in another part of the work. 

About this time the King of the Five Nations had ordered the Great War chief, 
Shorihawne, (a Mohawk,) to march directly with an army of five thousand warriors to 
aid the Governor of Canandaigua against the Erians, to attack the Fort Kayquatkav 
and endeavor to extinguish the council fire of the enemy, which was becoming dange- 
rous to the neighboring nations ; but unfortunately during the siege, a shower of arrows 
was flying from the fort, the great war chief Shorihawne was killed, and his body was 
conveyed back to the woods and was buried in a solemn manner ; but however, the 
siege continued for several days ; the Erians sued for peace ; the army immediatelj 
ceased from hostilities, and left the Erians in entire possession of the countr)-. 



30 HISTORY OF THE 

down the declivity. Such covered paths, or rather the remains of 
them, lead from many of these ancient fortifications. Mr. School- 
craft concludes that they were intended for the emergency of a 
prolonged siege. They would seem now, to have been but a poor 
defence for the water carriers, against the weapons of modern war- 
fare; yet probably sufficient to protect them from arrows, and a foe 
that had no sappers or miners in their ranks. 

There is an ancient battle field upon the Buffalo creek, six miles 
from Buffalo, near the Mission station. There are appearances of 
an enclosed area, a mound where human bones have been excavated, 
remains of pottery ware, &c. The Senecas have a tradition that 
here was a last decisive battle between their people and their invet- 
erate enemies the Kah-Kwahs; though there would seem to be no 
reason why the fortification should not be classed among those that 
existed long before the Senecas are supposed to have inhabited this 
i-egion. 

A mile north of Aurora village, in Erie county, there are several 
small lakes or ponds, around and between which, there are knobs or 
elevations, thickly covered with a tall growth of pine; upon them, are 
several mounds, where many human bones have been excavated. 
In fact, Aurora and its vicinity, seems to have been a favorite resort 
not only for the ancient people whose works and remains we are 
noticing, but for the other races that succeeded them. Relics abound 
there perhaps to a greater extent than in any other locality in 
Western New York. An area of from three to four miles in extent, 
embracing the village, the ponds, the fine springs of water at the 
foot of the bluffs to the north, and the level plain to the south, would 
seem to have been thickly populated. There are in the village and 
vicinity few gardens and fields where ancient and Indian relics are 
not found at each successive ploughing. Few cellars are excavated 
without discovering them. In digging a cellar a few years since 
upon the farm of Chas. P. Pierson, a skeleton was exhumed, the 
thigh bones of which would indicate great height; exceeding by 
several inches, that of the tallest of our own race. In digging 
another cellar, a large number of skeletons, or detached bones, were 
thrown out. Upon the farm of M. B. Crooks, two miles from the 
village, where a tree had been turned up, several hundred pounds 
of axes were found; a blacksmith who was working up some axes 
that were found in Aurora, told the author that most of them were 
without any steel, but that the iron was of a superior quality. He 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 31 

had one that was entirely of steel, out of which he was manufacturing 
some edge tools. 

Near the village, principally upon the farm of the late Horace 
S. Turner, was an extensive Beaver Dam. It is but a few years 
since an aged Seneca strolled away from the road, visited the 
ponds, the springs, and coming to a field once overflowed by the 
dam, but then reclaimed and cultivated, said these were the haunts 
of his youth — upon the hills he had chased the deer, at the springs 
he had slaked his thirst, and in the field he had trapped the beaver. 

The ancient works at Fort Hill, Le Roy, are especially worthy 
of observation in connection with this interesting branch of history, 
or rather enquiry. The author is principally indebted for an 
account of them to Mr. Schoolcraft's " Notes on the Iroquois," 
for which it was communicated by F. Follett, of Batavia. They 
are three miles north of Le Roy, on an elevated point of land, 
formed by the junction of a small stream called Fordham's Brook, 
with Allan's Creek. The better view of Fort Hill, is had to the 
north of it, about a quarter of a mile on the road leading from 
Bergen to Le Roy. From this point of observation it needs little 
aid of the imagination to conceive that it was erected as a fortifi- 
cation by a large and powerful army, looking for a permanent and 
inaccessible bulwark of defence. From the center of the hill, in a 
northwesterly course, the country lies quite flat ; more immediately 
north, and inclining to the east, the land is also level for one hun- 
dred rods, where it rises nearly as high as the hill, and continues 
for several miles quite elevated. In approaching the hill from the 
north it stands very prominently before you, rising rather abruptly 
but not perpendicularly, to the height of eighty or ninety feet, ex- 
tending about forty rods on a line east and west, the corners being 
round or truncated, and continuing to the south on the west side for 
some fifty or sixty rods, and on the east side for about half a mile, 
maintaining about the same elevation on the sides as in front; beyond 
which distance the line of the hill is that of the land around. There 
are undoubted evidences of its having been resorted to as a fortifi- 
cation, and of its having constituted a valuable point of defence to 
a rude and half civilized people. Forty years ago an entrenchment 
ten feet deep, and some twelve or fifteen feet wide, extended from 
the west to the east end, along the north or front part, and contin- 
ued up each side about twenty rods, where it crossed over, and 
joining, made the circuit of entrenchment complete. At this day a 



32 HISTORY OF THE 

portion of the entrenchment is easily perceived, for fifteen rods 
along the extreme western half of the north or front part, the cul- 
tivation of the soil and other causes having nearly obliterated all 
other portions. It would seem that this fortification was arranged 
more for protection against invasion from the north, this direction 
being evidently its most commanding position. Near the northwest 
corner, piles of rounded stones, have, at difl'erent times, been col- 
lected of hard consistence, which are supposed to have been used as 
weapons of defence by the besieged against the besiegers. Such 
skeletons as have been found in and about this locality, indicate a race 
of men averaging one third larger than the present race; so adjudged 
by anatomists. From the fortification, a trench leads to a spring 
of water. Arrow heads, pipes, beads, gouges, pestles, stone hatch- 
ets, have been found upon the ground, and excavated, in and about 
these fortifications. The pipes were of both stone and earthen 
ware ; there was one of baked clay, the bowl of which was in the 
form of a man's head and face, the nose, eyes, and other features 
being depicted in a style resembling some of the figures in Mr. 
Steven's plate of the ruins of Central America. Forest trees were 
standing in the trench and on its sides, in size and age not differing 
from those in the neighboring forests ; and upon the ground, the 
heart- woods of black-cherry trees of large size, the remains undoubt- 
edly of a growth of timber that preceded the present growth. 
They were in such a state of soundness as to be used for timber by 
the first settlers. This last circumstance would establish greater 
antiquity for these works, than has been generally claimed from 
other evidences. The black-cherry of this region, attains usually 
the age of two hundred and seventy-five, and three hundred years ; 
the beech and maple groves of Western New York, bear evidences 
of having existed at least two hundred and forty or fifty years. 
These aggregates would shew that these works were over five hun- 
dred years old. But this, like other timber growth testimony that 
has been adduced — that seems to have been relied upon somewhat 
by Mr. Clinton and others — is far from being satisfactory. We 
can only determine by this species of evidence that timber has been 
growing upon these mounds and fortifications at least a certain length 
of time ; — have no warrant for saying how much longer. Take for 
instance the case under immediate consideration : — How is it to be 
determined that there were not more than the two growths, of 
cherry, and beech and maple ; that other growths did not precede 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 33 

or intervene. These relics are found in our dense and heaviest 
timbered wood lands, below a deep vegetable mould interspersed 
with evidences of a long succession of timber growths and decays. 
We can in truth, form but a vague conception of the length of time 
since these works were constructed, — while we are authorized in 
saying they are of great antiquity, we are not authorized in lim- 
iting the period. 

The following are among some reflections of Professor Dewey 
of Rochester, who has reviewed Fort Hill at Le Roy, and fur- 
nished Mr. Schoolcraft with his observations. They may aid 
the reader, who is an antiquarian, in his speculations: — 

"'The forest has been removed. Not a tree remains on the quad- 
rangle, and only a few on the edge of the ravine on the west. By 
cultivating the land, the trench is nearly filled in some places, though 
the line of it is clearly seen. On the north side the trench is con- 
siderable, and where the bridge crosses it, is three or four feet deep 
at the sides of the road. It will take only a few years more to 
obliterate it entirely, as not even a stump remains to mark out its line. 

From this view it may be seen, or inferred, 

1. That a real trench bounded three sides of the quadrangle. 
On the south side there was not found any trace of trench, paUsadoes, 
blocks, &c. 

2. It was formed long before the whites came into the country. 
The large trees on the ground and in the trench, carry us back to 
an early era. 

3. The workers must have had some convenient tools for exca- 
vation. 

4. The direction of the sides may have had some reference to 
the four cardinal points, though the situation of the ravines naturally 
marked out the lines. 

5. It cannot have been designed merely to catch wild animals, 
to be driven into it from the south. The oblique line down to the 
spring is opposed to this supposition, as well as the insufficiency of 
such a trench to confine the animals of the forest. 

6. The same reasons render it improbable that the quadrangle 
was designed to confine and protect domestic animals. 

7. It was probably a sort of fortified place. There might have 
been a defence on the south side by a stockade, or some similar 
means which might have entirely disappeared. 

By what people was this work done? 

The articles found in the burying ground here, offer no certain 

reply. The axes, chisels, &c. found on tne Indian grounds in this 

part of the state, were evidently made of the green stone or trap 

of New England, like those found on the Connecticut river in Mas- 

3 



34 HISTORY OF THE 

sachusetts. The pipe of limestone miglit be from that part of the 
country. The pipes seem to belong to different eras. 

1. The limestone pipe indicates the work of the savage or 
aborigines. 

2. The third indicates the age of French influence over the 
Indians. An intelligent French gentleman says such clay pipes are 
frequent among the town population in parts of France. 

3. The second, and most curious, seems to indicate an earlier 
age and people. 

The beads found at Fort Hill are long and coarse, made of baked 
clay, and may have had the same origin as the third pipe. 

Fort Hill cannot have been formed by the French as one of their 
posts to aid in the destruction of the English colony of New-York ; 
if the French had made Fort Hill a post as early as 1660 or 185 
years ago, and then deserted it, the trees could not have grown to 
the size of the forest generally in 1810, or in 150 years afterwards. 
The white settlements had extended only twelve miles west of Avon 
in 1798, and some years after, (1800,) Fort Hill was covered with a 
dense forest. A chestnut tree, cut down in 1842, at Rochester, 
showed 254 concentric circles of wood, and must have been more 
than 200 years old in 1800. So opposed is the notion that this was 
a deserted French post. 

Must we not refer Fort Hill to that race which peopled this 
country before the Indians who raised so many monuments greatly 
exceeding the power of the Indians, and who lived at a remote era." 

Upon the upper end of Tonawanda Island, in the Niagara River, 
near the dwelling house of the late Stephen White, in full view of 
the village of Tonawanda, and the Buffalo and Niagara Falls Rail 
Road, is an ancient mound, the elevation of which within the recol- 
lection of the early settlers, was at least ten feet. It is now from 
six to eight feet, — circular — twenty-five feet diameter at the base. 
In the centre, a deep excavation has been made, at different periods, 
in search of relics. A large number of human bones have been 
taken from it, — arrows, beads, hatchets, &c. The mound occupies 
a prominent position in the pleasure grounds laid out by Mr. White. 
How distinctly are different ages marked upon this spot ! Here are 
the mouldering remains of a primitive race — a race whose highest 
achievments in the arts, was the fashioning from flint the rude wea- 
pons of war and the chase, the pipe and hatchet of stone; and here 
upon the other hand, is a mansion presenting good specimens 

Note. — The title of this chapter would confine these notices to Holland Purchase. 
The author has gone a short distance beyond his bounds, to include a well defined 
specimen of these ancient works. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 33 

oi' modem architecture. Commerce has brought the materials for 
its chimney pieces from the quarries of Italy, and skill and genius 
have chiseled and given to them a mirror-like polish. Here in 
the midst of relics of another age, and of occupants of w^hom we 
know nothing beyond these evidences of their existence, are 
choice fruits, ornamental shrubbery, and graveled walks. 

Directly opposite this mound upon the point formed by the junc- 
tion of Tonawanda creek with the Niagara River there would seem 
to have been an ancient armory, and upon no small scale. There 
is intermingled with at least an acre of earth, chips of flint, refuse 
pieces, and imperfect arrows that were broken in process of manu- 
facture. In the early cultivation of the ground, the plough would 
occasionally strike spots where these chips and pieces of arrows 
predominated over the natural soil. 

On the north side of the Little Buffalo Creek, in the town of 
Lancaster, Erie County, there is an ancient work upon a bluff", about 
thirty feet above the level of the stream. A circular embankment 
encloses an acre. Thirty years ago this embankment was nearly 
breast high to a man of ordinary height. There were five gate-ways 
distinctly marked. A pine tree of the largest class in our forest, 
grew directly in one of the gate-ways. It was adjudged, (at the 
period named,) by practical lumbermen, to be five hundred year? 
OLD. Nearly opposite, a small stream puts into the Little Buffalo. 
Upon the point formed by the junction of the two streams, a mound 
extends across from one to the other, as if to enclose or fortify the 
point. In modern military practice, strong fortifications are invested 
sometimes by setting an army down before them and throwing up 
breast-works. May not this smaller work bear a similar relation to 
the larger one 1 

About one and a half miles west of Shelby Centre, Orleans 
county, is an ancient work. A broad ditch encloses in a form 
nearly circular, about three acres of land. The ditch is at this day, 
well defined several feet deep. Adjoining the spot on the south, 
is a swamp about one mile in width by two in length. This swamp 
was once, doubtless, if not a lake, an impassable morass. From the 
interior of the enclosure made by the ditch, there is what appears 
to have been, a passage way on the side next to the swamp. No 
other breach occurs in the entire circuit of the embankment. There 
are accumulated within and near this fort large piles of small stones 



36 HISTORY OF THE 

of a size convenient to be thrown by the hand, or with a sling.* Ar- 
row heads of flint are found in and near the enclosure, in great 
abundance, stone axes, &c. Trees of four hundred years growth 
stand upon the embankment, and underneath them have been found, 
earthen ware, pieces of plates or dishes, wrought with skill, pre- 
senting ornaments in relief, of various patterns. Some skeletons 
almost entire have been exhumed ; many of giant size, not less than 
seven to eight feet in length. The skulls are large and well devel- 
oped in the anterior lobe, broad between the ears, and flattened in 
the coronal region. Half a mile west of the fort is a sand hill. 
Here a large number of human skeletons have been exhumed, in a 
perfect state. Great numbers appeared to have been buried in the 
same grave. Many of the skulls appear to have been broken in with 
clubs or stones. " This," says S. M. Burroughs, Esq, of Medina, 
( to whom the author is indebted for the description,) "was doubt- 
less the spot where a great battle had been fought. Were not these 
people a branch of the Aztecs? The earthen ware found here 
seems to indicate a knowledge of the arts known to that once 
powerful nation.'" 

The Rev. Saimuel KirklandI visited and described several of 
these remains west of the Genesee River, in the year 1788. At 
that early period, before they had been disturbed by the antiqua- 
rian, the plough or the harrow, they must have been much more per- 
fect, and better defined than now. Mr. Kirkland says in his journal, 
that after leaving " Kanawageas," j he travelled twenty-six miles 
and encamped for the night at a place called " Joaki," || on the 



* These piles of small stone are frequently spoken of in connection with these 
works, by those who saw them at an early period of white settlement. 

t Mr. K. was the pioneer Protestant Missionary among the Iroquois. The Rev. Dr. 
Wheolock, of Lebanon, Conn., who was his early tutor, in one of his letters to the 
Countess of Huntingdon, in 1765, says : — " A young Englishman, whom I sent last 
fall to winter with the numerous and savage tribes of the Senecas, in order to learn their 
language, and fit him for a mission among them ; where no missionaiy has hitherto 
dared to venture. This bold adventure of his, which under all the circumstances of it 
is the most extraordinary" of the kind I have ever known, has been attended with abun- 
dant evidence of a divine blessing." Connected as was the subject of this eulogy with 
other branches of our local history, he will be frequently referred to in the course of this 
work. 

} Avon, 

II Batavia, or the " Great Bend of the Tonnewanta," as it was uniformly called by the 
early travellers on the trail from Tioga Point to Fort Niagara and Canada. [11? See 
account of Indian Trails. Batavia was favored with several Indian names. In Sen- 
eca, the one used by Mr K. w-ould be Racoon. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 37 

river " Tonawanda." Six miles from the place of encampment, lie 
rode to the "open fields."* Here he "walked out about half a 
mile with one of the Seneca chiefs to view " the remains which he 
thus describes : — 

" This place is called by the Senecas Tegatainasghque, which 
imports a double fortified town, or a town with a fort at each end. 
Here are the vestiges of two forts; the one contains about four 
acres of ground; the other, distant from this about two miles, and 
situated at the other extremity of the ancient town, encloses twice 
that quantity. The ditch around the former (which I particularh' 
examined) is about five or six feet deep. A small stream of livin'o- 
water, with a high bank, circumscribed nearly one third of the en- 
closed ground. There were traces of six gates, or avenues, around 
the ditch, and a dug-way near the works to the water. The 
ground on the opposite side of the water, was in some places nearly 
as high as that on which they built the fort, which might make it 
nessessary for this covered way to the water. A considerable num- 
ber of large, thrifty oaks have grown up within the enclosed grounds, 
both in and upon the ditch; some of them at least, appeared to be two 
hundred years old or more. The ground is of a hard gravelly kind, 
intermixed with loam, and more plentifully at the brow of the hill. 
In some places, at the bottom of the ditch, I could run my cane a fool 
or more into the ground; so that probably the ditch was much deeper 
in its original state than it appears to be now. Near the northern 
fortification, which is situated on high ground, are the remains of a 
funeral pile. The earth is raised about six feet above the common 
surface, and betwixt twenty and thirty feet in diameter. From the 
best information I can get of the Indian Historians, these Forts were 
made previous to the Senecas being admitted into the confederacy of 
the Mohawks, Onondagas, Oneidas and Cayugas, and when the 
former were at war with the Mississaugas and other Indians around 
the great lakes. This must have been near three hundred years 
ago, if not more, by many concurring accounts which I have 
obtained from different Indians of several different tribes. Indian 
tradition says also that these works were raised, and a famous battle 
fought here, in the pure Indian style and with Indian weapons, long 
before their knowledge and use of fire arms or any knowledge 
of the Europeans. These nations at that time used, in fighting, 
bows and arrows, the spear or javelin, pointed with bone, and the 

* The openings, as they are termed, in the towns of Elba and Alabama ; lying on 
either side of the Batavia and Lockport road, but chiefly, between that road and the 
Tonawanda Creek. The antiquarian who goes in search of the ancient Tegatain- 
asghque, will be likely to divide his attention between old and new things. It was a 
part of Tonawanda Indian Reservation. About twenty-five years since, it was sold to 
the Ogden Company ; and the ancient " open fields " now present a broad expanse of 
wheat fields, interspersed with farm buildings that give evidence of the elements of 
wealth that have been found in the soil. 



38 HISTORY OF THE 

war club or death mall. When the former were expended, they 
came into close engagement in using the latter. Their warrior's 
dress or coat of mail for this method of fighting, was a short jacket 
made of willow sticks, or moon wood, and laced tight around the 
body; the head covered with a cap of the same kind, but commonly 
worn double for the better security of that part against a stroke from 
the war club. In the great battle fought at this place, between the 
Senccas and Western Indians, some affirm their ancestors have told 
them there were eight hundred of their enemies slain; others include 
the killed on both sides to make that number. All their historians 
agree in this, that the battle was fought here, where the heaps of 
slain are buried, before the arrival of the Europeans; some say 
three, some say four, others five ages ago; they reckon an age one 
jiundred winters or colds. I would further remark upon this subject 
that there are vestiges of ancient fortified towns in various parts, 
throughout the extensive territory of the Six Nations. I find also 
by constant enquiry, that a tradition prevails among the Indians in 
general, that all Indians came from the west. I have wished for an 
opportunity to pursue this inquiry with the more remote tribes of 
Indians, to satisfy myself, at least, if it be their universal opinion. 

" On the south side of Lake Erie, are a series of old fortifications, 
from Cattaraugus Creek to the Pennsylvania line, a distance of fifty 
miles. Some are from two to four miles apart, others half a mile 
only. Some contain five acres. The walls or breast-works are of 
earth, and are generally on grounds where there are appearances 
of creeks having flowed into the lake, or where there was a bay. 
Further south there is said to be another chain parallel with the 
first, about equi-distant from the lake. 

" These remains of art, may be viewed as connecting links of a 
great chain, which extends beyond the confines of our state, and 
becomes more magnificent and curious as we recede from the 
northern lakes, pass through Ohio into the great valley of the Mis- 
sissippi, thence to the gulf of Mexico through Texas into New 
Mexico and South America. In this vast range of more than three 
thousand miles, these monuments of ancient skill gradually become 
more remarkable for their number, magnitude and interesting 
variety, until we are lost in admiration and astonishment, to find, 
as Baron Humboldt informs us, in a world which we call new, 
ancient institutions, religious ideas, and forms of edifices, similar 
to those of Asia, which there seem to go back to the dawn of 
civilization." 

" Over the great secondary region of the Ohio, are the ruins of 
what once were forts, cemeteries, temples, altars, camps, towns. 

Note. — The traditions given to Mr. Kirkland at so early a period, are added to his 
account of the old Forts, to be taken in connection with adverse theories and conclusions 
upon the same point. As has before been observed, many of the Senecas who have 
since been consulted, do not pretend to any satisfactory knowledge upon the subjects. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 39 

villages, race-grounds and other places of amusement, habitations 
of chieftains, videttes, watch-towers and monuments." 

"It is," says Mr. Atwater,* "nothing but one vast cemetery of 
the beings of past ages. Man and his works, the mammoth, tropi- 
cal animals, the cassia tree and other tropical plants, are here repo- 
sing together in the same formation. By what catastrophe they 
were overwhelmed and buried in the same strata it would be 
impossible to say, unless it was that of the general deluge." 

"In the valley of the Mississippi, the monuments of buried nations 
are unsurpassed in magnitude and melancholy grandeur by any in 
North America. Here cities have been traced similar to those of 
Ancient Mexico, once containing hundreds of thousands of souls. 
Here are to be seen thousands of tumuli, some an hundred feet high, 
others many hundred feet in circumference, the places of their 
worship, their sepulchre, and perhaps of their defence. Similar 
mounds are scattered throughout the continent, from the shores of 
the Pacific into the interior of our State as far as Black River and 
from the Lakes to South America."! 

So much for all we can see or know of our ancient predecessors. 
The whole subject is but incidental to the main purposes of local 
history. The reader who wishes to pursue it farther will be assisted 
in his enquiries by a perusal of Mr. Schoolcraft's Notes on the 
Iroquois. But the mystery of this pre-occupancy is far from being 
satisfactorily explained. It is an interesting, fruitful source of the- 
ories, enquiry and speculation. 

*Atwater's Antiquities of the West 

tYates and Moulton's Historj- of New York. 



40 HISTORY OF THE 



CHAPTER 11. 

?HE IROQUOIS, OR FIVE NATIONS.* 



Emerging from a region of doubt and conjecture, we arrive at 
another branch of local history, replete with interest — less obscure, 
— though upon its threshold we feel the want of reliable data, the 
lights that guide us in tracing the history of those who have writ- 
ten records. 

The Seneca Indians were our immediate predecessors — the 
pre-occupants from whom the title of the Holland Purchase was 
derived. They were the Fifth Nation of a Confederacy, termed 
by themselves Mingoes, as inferred by Mr. Clinton, Ho-de-no-sau- 
nee,t as inferred by other writers ; the Confederates, by the Eng- 
lish ; the Maquaws, by the Dutch ; the Massowamacs, by the 
Southern Indians ; the IROQUOIS, by the French ; by which last 
name they are now usually designated, in speaking or writing of 
the distinct branches of the Aborigines of the United States. 

The original Confederates were the Mohawks, having their prin- 
cipal abode upon that river ; the Oneidas, upon the southern shore 
of Oneida Lake ; the Cayugas near Cayuga Lake ; the Senecas, 
upon Seneca Lake and the Genesee River. Those localities were 
their principal seats, or the places of their Council fires. They 
may be said generally, to have occupied in detached towns and vil- 
lages the whole of this State, from the Hudson to the Niagara 
River, now embraced in the counties of Schenectady, Schoharie, 
Montgomery, Fulton, Herkimer, Oneida, Madison, Onondaga, Cay- 
uga, Seneca, Wayne, Ontario, Livingston, Genesee, Wyoming, 
Monroe, Orleans, Niagara, Erie, Chautauque, Cattaragus, AUe- 

* The "Five" Nations, at the period of our earhest knowledge of them — the 
" Six " Nations after they had adopted the Tuscaroras, in 1712. 

t " The People of the Long House," from the circumstance that they likened their 
political structure to a long tenement or dwelling. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 41 

ghany, Steuben and Yates. A narrower limit of their dwelling 
places, the author is aware, has been usually designated ; but in 
reference to the period of the first European advent among them — 
1678 — it is to be inferred that their habitations were thus extended, 
not only from the traces of their dwellings, and the relics of their 
rude cultivation of the soil, but from the records of the early Jesuit 
Missionaries. Their missions were at different periods, extended 
from the Hudson to the Niagara River, and each one of them would 
seem to have had several villages in its vicinity. Each of the Five 
Nations undoubtedly had a principal seat. They were as indicated 
by their names. And each had its tributary villages, extended as 
has been assumed. It was plainly a coming together from separate 
localities — a gathering of clansmen — to resist the invasion of De 
Nonville; and it is to be inferred from the journal of Father Hen- 
nepin that there M^ere villages of the "Iroquois Senecas" in the 
neighborhood of La Salle's ship yard on the Niagara River, and the 
primitive garrison or "palisade,"' at its mouth. The Missionaries 
who went out from the "place of ship building," and from the "Fort 
at Niagara" from time to time, upon apparently short excursions, 
visited different villages. The Jesuit Missions upon the Mohawk, 
and at Onondaga would seem to have been visited, each by the 
inhabitants of several villages. The author rejects the conclusion, 
that the Tonawanda, and the Buffalo Indian villages, were not 
founded until after the expedition of General Sullivan ; and con- 
cludes that these and other settlements of the Iroquois existed prior 
to the European advent, west of the Genesee River. While some 
of the Seneca Indians assume the first position, others, equally 
intelligent, and as well instructed in their traditions, do not pretend 
to thus limit the period of settlement at these points. 

Their actual dominion had a far wider range. The Five Nations 
claimed "all the land not sold to the English, from the mouth of 
Sorrel River, on the south side of Lakes Erie and Ontario, on both 
sides of the Ohio till it falls into the Mississippi ; and on the north 
side of these Lakes that whole territory between the Ottawa River 
and Lake Huron, and even beyond the straits between that and 
Lake Erie." * And in another place the same author says : — 
"When the Dutch began the settlement of this country, all the 
Indians on Long Island, and the northern shores of the Sound, on 

* Smith's HistoH' of New York. 



42 HISTORY OF THE 

the banks of the Connecticut, Hudson, Delaware, and Susquehannah 
Rivers, were in subjection to the Five Nations, and acknowledged 
it by paying tribute. The French historians of Canada, both 
ancient and modern, agree that the more Northern Indians, were 
driven before the superior martial prowess of the Confederates." 
" The Ho-de-no-sau-nee, occupied our precise territory, and their 
council fires burned continually from the Hudson to the Niagara, 
Our old forests have rung with their war shouts, and been enli- 
vened with their festivals of peace. Their feathered bands, their 
eloquence, their deeds of valor have had their time and place. In 
their progressive course, they had stretched around the half of our 
republic, and rendered their name a terror nearly from ocean to 
ocean ; when the advent of the Saxon race arrested their career, 
and prepared the way for the destruction of the Long House, and 
the final extinguishment of the Council Fires of the Confederacy.* 
" At one period we hear the sound of their war cry along the 
Straits of the St. Mary's, and at the foot of Lake Superior. At 
another, under the walls of Quebec, where they finally defeated 
the Hurons, under the eyes of the French. They put out the fires 
of the Gah-kwas and Eries. They eradicated the Susquehannocks. 
They placed the Lenapes, the Nanticokes, and the Munsees under 
the yoke of subjection. They put the Metoacks and Manhattans 
under tribute. They spread the terror of their arms over all New 
England. They traversed the whole length of the Appalachian 
Chain and descended like the enraged yagisho and megalonyx, on 
the Cherokees and Catawbas. Smith encountered their warriors 
in the settlement of Virginia, and La Salle on the discovery of 
the Illinois."! "The immediate dominion of the Iroquois — when 
the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas, were 
first visited by the trader, the Missionary, or the war parties of the 
French — stretched, as we have seen, from the borders of Vermont 
to Western New York, from the Lakes to the head waters of the 
Ohio, the Susquehannah and the Delaware. The number of their 
warriors was declared by the French in 1660, to have been two 
thousand two hundred; and in 1677, an English agent sent on pur- 
pose to ascertain their strength, confirmed the precision of the state- 
ment. Their geographical position made them umpires in the 

* Letters on the Iroquois, by Shenandoah in American Review, 
t Schoolcraft. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 43 

contest of the French for dominion in the west. Besides their 
poHtical importance was increased by their conquests. Not only 
did they claim some supremacy in Northern New England as far 
as the Kennebeck, and to the south as far as New Haven, and 
were acknowledged as absolute lords over the conquered Lenappe, 
— the peninsula of Upper Canada was their hunting field by right 
of war ; they had exterminated the Eries and Andastes, both tribes 
of their own family, the one dwelling on the south-eastern banks 
of lake Erie, the other on the head waters of the Ohio; they had 
triumphantly invaded the tribes of the west as far as Illinois ; their 
warriors had reached the soil of Kentucky and Western Virginia ; 
and England, to whose alliance they steadily inclined, availed itself 
of their treaties for the cession of territories, to encroach even 
on the Empire of France in America."* 

While the citations that we have made from reliable authorities, 
sufficiently establish the extended dominions of the Iroquois, they 
also sanction the highest estimate that has been made of their bravery 
and martial prowess. Their strength and uniform success, are 
mainly to be attributed to their social and political organization. 
They were Confederates. Their enemies, or the nations they chose 
to make war with, for the purposes of conquest, extended rule, poli- 
tical supremacy — were detached, — had feuds perhaps between 
themselves — could not act in concert. The Iroquois were a five 
fold cord. Their antagonists, but single strands, and if acting 
occasionally in concert, it was in the absence of a league or union, 
of that peculiar character that made their assailants invincible. 
Added to this, is the concurrent testimony of historians, that the 
Iroquois, in physical and mental organization far excelled all other of 
the aboriginal nations, or tribes of our country. A position justified 
by our own observation and comparisons. Even in our own day, 
now that they are dwindled down to a mere I'emnant of what they 
were; confined to a few thousand acres of a broad domain they 
once posessed, (and even these stinted allotments grudgingly made, 
and their possession envied by rapacious pre-emptionists,) now 
that they have survived the terrible ordeal — a contest with our 
race, and all its blighting and contaminating influences, — their 
superiority is evinced in various ways; their supremacy apparent 
Upon the banks of the Tonawanda, the Alleghany, the Cattaragus, 

'Bancroft's History of the United States. 



44 HISTORY OF THE 

there are now unbroken, proud spirits of this noble race of men, 
who would justify the highest encomiums that history has bestowed. 
If we are told that they have degenerated, the position can be 
controverted by the citation of individual instances. If their 
ambition has been crushed; if they feel, as well they may, that their 
condition has been changed ; that they are in a measure dependants 
upon a soil, and in a region, where they were but a Httle time since, 
lords and masters ; if they are conscious, as well they may be, that 
superior diplomacy, artful and over-reaching negotiation, has as 
effectually conquered and despoiled them of their possessions as a 
conquest of arms would have done ; if they feel that they are aliens, 
as they are made by our laws, upon the native soil of themselves 
and a long line of ancestors. — There are yet worthy descendants of 
the primitive stock — the same "Seneca Iroquois," in mind, in fea- 
ture, in some of the best attributes of our common nature, — that 
La Salle, Hennepin, Tonti, Joncair, found here in these western 
forests; that the seemingly partial, yet truthful historian has describ- 
ed. While the vices of civilization — or those that civilization has 
introduced — have effectually degenerated a large portion of them; 
debased them to a level with the worst of the whites; there are 
those, and a large class of them, that have, with a moral firmness 
that is admirable — a native, uneducated sense of right and wrong, 
of virtue and vice ; resisted all the temptations with which they 
have been beset and surrounded, and command our highest es- 
teem, not for what they, or their progenitors have been ; but for 
their intrinsic merits. Their ancient council fires, are not extin- 
guished; though they burn not as brightly in the allotted retreat 
where they are now kindled, as of yore, when they blazed in the 
" Long House," from Hudson to Lake Erie. Their confederacy 
is dwindled to a mere shadow of what it was, but it yet exists. 
" They have been stripped so entirely of their possessions as to have 
retained scarcely sufficient for a sepulchre. They have been shorn 
so entirely of their power as to be scarcely heard when appealing 
to justice from the rapacity of the pre-emptive claimants."* And 
yet they are a distinctive people — their Ancient League in force ; 
their ancient rites and ceremonies are still performed. From their 
ancient seat at Onondaga, the council fire is transferred to 
Tonawanda. Here it is yet kindled. Here the representatives of 

Slienandoah. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 45 

the Senecas, the Tuscaroras, the Onondagas, the scattered rem- 
nants of the Mohawks, Cayugas and Oneidas, yet assemble, go 
through with their ancient rites and ceremonies ; — their speeches, 
dances, exhortations, sacrifices, &c.; supply vacancies that have 
occurred in the ranks of their sachems and chiefs, furnish a feeble 
but true representation of the doings of their ancient confederacy, 
when it was the sole conservator and legislature of two thirds of 
our Empire State, and held in subjection nearly that proportion of 
our own modern and similarly constructed Union. 

The historians of the Iroquois, have found ample authority for 
the extended dominion, and military supremacy they have conceded 
to them, in the writings of the French Missionaries, and in their 
own well authenticated traditions; and there is still more reliable 
testimony. As in after times — in their wars with the French, and 
in the Border Wars of the Revolution, a large proportion of their 
prisoners were saved from torture and execution and adopted into 
families and tribes, for the double purpose of supplying the loss of 
their own people slain in battle or taken prisoners — of keeping 
their numbers good — and for solacing the bereaved relatives, by 
substituting a favorite captive in the family circle. This was 
not only the ancient, but the modern custom of the Iroquois. 
The commentators upon their institutions, have inferred that 
this was a part of their system and policy. This will be quite 
apparent in some accounts that will follow of white prisoners 
who were found among the Senecas in Western New York, at the 
earliest period of white settlement, and whose descendants are still 
among them. There are now upon the Tonawanda Reservation, at 
Cattaragus and Alleghany, descendants of Cherokee, Seminole and 
Catawba captives; in fact of nearly all the nations, which we are 
told in their traditions, they were at war with in early times. It fs 
singular, with what apparent precision, they will trace the mixed 
blood, w^hen none but themselves can discover any difference of 
complexion or features. Tradition must be their helper, in deter- 
mining after the lapse of centuries, and a long succession of gene- 
rations, where the blood of the captive is mingled with their own. 
They are good genealogists; far better than we are, who can avail 
ourselves of written records. 

And there is a fact connected with this reprieving and adopting 
captives, that commands our especial wonder, if not our admiration. 
In all tlic numerous cases that we have accounts of, wnth few 



46 HISTORY OF THE 

exceptions, captivity soon ceased to be irksome; an escape from it 
hardly a desirable consummation! Was the captive of their ow^n 
race and color, he soon forgot that he was in the wigwam of stran- 
gers, away from his country and kindred; he was no alien; social, 
political, and family immunities were extended to him. He was as 
one of them in all respects. Had he left behind father, mother, 
brother, sister or wife, they were supplied him; and it baffles all 
our preconceived opinions of an arbitrary, instinctive sense of kin- 
dred blood affinity, when told how easily the captive adapted him- 
self to his new relations; how soon the adopter and the adopted 
conformed to an alliance that was merely conventional. And so it 
was in a great degree with our own race. They too, were captives 
among the Iroquois, but wore no captive's chains. After a little 
there was no restraint, no coercion, no desire to escape. Upon 
this point, we have the recorded testimony of Mary Jejiison, of 
Horatio Jones, and several others. Mrs. Jemison, who had 
more than ordinary natural endowments; who possessed a. mind and 
affections adapted to the enjoyments of civilization and refinement ; 
affirms that in a short time after she was made a captive, she was 
content with her condition; and she affirmed at the close of a long 
life, spent principally among the Senecas, that she had uniformly 
been treated with kindness. The author in his bojdiood has listened 
to the recitals of captive whites among the Senecas, and well 
remembers how incredible it seemed that they should have preferred 
a continuance among them to a return to their own race. This to 
us seemingly singular choice, with those who were young when 
captured, is partly to be accounted for in the novelty of the change 
— the sports and pastimes — the "freedom of the woods" — the 
absence of restraints and checks, upon youthful inclinations. But 
chiefly it was the influence of kindness, extended to them as soon 
as they were adopted. The Indian mother knew no difference 
between her natural and adopted children; there were no social 
discriminations, or if any, in favor of the adopted captive; they 
had all the rights and privileges in their tribes, nations, confederacy, 
enjoyed by the native Iroquois.* 

The Senecas have traditions of the execution of several 



* This kind treatment of prisoners, it is not contended, was uniform. A portion 
of them were subjected to torture and death. It was however, one thing or the 
other: — death attended by all the horrors of savage custom, or adoption into a family, 
and the treatment that has been indicated. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 47 

prisoners, that were made captives in their wars with the Southern 
Indians. A stream that puts into the Alleghany, below Olean, 
bears the Seneca name of a Cherokee prisoner, who, their 
traditions say, was executed there. Mrs. Jemison* says, her 
husband, Hiokatoo, was engaged in 1731, to assist in collecting 
an army to go against the Catawbas, Cherokees, and other 
Southern Indians. That they met the enemy on the Tennessee 
River, "rushed upon them in ambuscade, and massacred 1200 on 
the spot ; " that after that, the battle continued for two days. 
She names several other wars with the Southern Indians, in which 
her warrior husband was engaged. It is but a few years since 
there were surviving aged Seneca Indians, who recounted their 
exploits in wars waged by the Iroquois against neighboring and 
far distant nations. 

The reader who has not made himself familiar with the history 
of the aboriginal pre-occupants of our region, has, perhaps, in 
this brief introduction of them, their wars and extended dominion 
— their pre-eminence among the nations of their race — the high 
position assigned them by historians, — been sufficiently interested 
to desire to know more of them ; especially to know something 
of the organization and frame work of a political system — a 
confederacy so wisely conceived by the untaught Statesmen of 
the forest, who had no precedents to consult, no written lore of 
ages to refer to, no failures or triumphs of systems of human 
government to serve for models or comparisons ; nothing to guide 
them but the lights of nature ; nothing to prompt them but 
necessity and emergency. 

The French historian, Volnev, was the first to pronounce the 
Iroquois the romans of the west ; a proud, and not undeserved 
title, which succeeding historians and commentators have not 
withheld. " Had they enjoyed the advantages possessed by the 
Greeks and Romans, there is no reason to believe they would have 
been at all inferior to these celebrated nations. Their minds 
appear to have been equal to any effort within the reach of man. 
Their conquests, if we consider their numbers and circumstances, 
were little inferior to those of Rome itself. In their harmony, 
the unity of their operations, the energy of their character, the 
vastness, vigor, and success of their enterprises, and the strength 

* Life of Mary Jemisou by James E. Seaver, revised and enlarged by Ebenezer Mix. 



48 HISTORY OF THE 

and sublimity of their eloquence, they may be fairly compared 
with the Greeks. Both the Greeks and Romans, before they 
began to rise into distinction, had already reached the state of 
society in which men are able to improve. The Iroquois had not. 
The Gi'eeks and Romans had ample means for improvement ; the 
Iroquois had none."* " If we except the celebrated league, which 
united the Five Nations into a Federal Republic, we can discern 
few traces of political wisdom among the rude American tribes as 
discover any great degree of foresight or extent of intellectual 
abilities."! " The Iroquois bore this proud appellation, not only by 
conquests over other tribes, but by encouraging the people of 
other nations to incorporate with them ; ' a Roman principle,' 
says Thatcher, ' recognized in the practice as well as theory of 
these lords of the forest."^ " From wiiatever point we scrutinize 
the general features of their confederacy, we are induced to 
regard it, in many respects, as a beautiful, as well as remarkable 
structure, and to hold it up as the triumph of Indian legislation."§ 
"It cannot, I presume, be doubted, that the confederates were a 
pecuHar and extraordinary people, contra-distinguished from the 
wars of the Indian Nations by great attainments in polity, in 
government, in negotiation, in eloquence, and in war."|| 

The peculiar structure of the confederacy of the Iroquois, is 
one of the most interesting features of our aboriginal history. A 
brief analysis of it is all that will be attempted. Its general 
features were known to their earliest historians, but it was left to 
a recent contributor IT to the archives of the New York Historical 
Society, to investigate the subject with a zeal, industry and ability, 
which do him great credit ; to give us a better knowledge of the 
legislation and laws of these sons of the forest, than we before 
possessed. To that source principally, with occasional reference 
to other authorities ; the author is indebted for the materials for 
the sketch that follows : — 

The existence of the Iroquois upon the soil now constituting 
Western and Middle New York, is distinctly traced back to the 
period of the discovery of America. Their traditions go beyond 

* President Dwight. t Robertson's America. 

t Yonnondio, or the Warriors of Genesee, by W. H. C. Hosmer. 

$ Shenandoah. ||Mr. Clinton. 

5[Letters on the Iroquois, Shenandoah ; addressed to Albert Gallatin, President. 
N. Y. Historical Society. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 49 

that period — or in fact have no limits ; some of their relators 
contending that this was always their home; others, that they came 
here by conquest ; and others, that they were peaceful emigrants 
from a former home in the south. This involves a mooted question, 
which it is not necessary here to discuss, if indeed it admits of any 
satisfactory conclusion. They fix upon no definite period in refer- 
ence to the origin of their confederacy. It existed, and was 
recognized by the Dutch, who were the first adventurers in the 
eastern portion of our state ; by the earliest French Jesuits in the 
valley of the Mohawk, at Onondaga, and along the south shores of 
Lake Ontario, and upon the Niagara River ; and there were 
evidences of a long precedent existence, that corresponded with 
their traditions. 

Like most systems of human governments, and especially the 
better ones — it was undoubtedly the offspring of emergency. 
Protracted wars, such as their race have been subject to since our 
first acquaintance with it — and which has often called into requisi- 
tion the mediatory offices of our government, had created the 
necessity of a union of strength — an alliance, for offence and defence. 
It was upon a smaller scale to be sure, than an alliance that 
followed centuries after, between the crowned heads of Europe ; 
but was dictated by better motives, and far more wisdom ; though 
with a history of Iroquois conquests before us, it is not to be denied, 
that they not only contemplated peace and union at home, but like 
their imitators meditated assaults upon their neighbors. The one 
was suggested by the autocrat of Russia, from a palace — tradition 
attributes the other to a "wise man* of the Onondaga nation," 
whose dwelling was but a hunter's lodge. 

The confederacy in one leading feature at least, was not unlike 
our Federal Union. The Five Nations M^ere as so many states, 
reserving to themselves some well defined powers, but yielding 
others for the general good. 

The supreme power of the confederacy, was vested in a con- 
gress of sachems, fifty in number. The Mohawks were entitled to 
nine representatives ; the Oneidas to nine ; theOnondagas to fourteen; 
the Cayugas to ten; the Senecas to eight. "The office of sachem 
was hereditary. They were " raised up," not by their respective 
nations, but by a council of all the sachems. They formed the 

* Dag^nowed^, 



50 HISTORY OF THE 

"council of the League," and in them resided the Executive legisla- 
tive and judicial authority. In their ovs^n localities, at home among 
their OM^n people, these sachems were the government, forming 
five independent local sovereignties, modelled after the general con- 
gress of sachems. There were in fact five distinct local republics 
within one general republic. It was as it would be with our dele- 
gation in Congress, if after discharging their duties at the seat of 
the general government, they came home and formed a council for all 
purposes of local government. Although not a monarchy, it "was 
the rule of the few," and these few possessing what would look to us 
like a power very liable to abuse — ^.the power of self creation; fdling 
up their own ranks, as vacancies occured from time to time; and yet 
we are told that this formed no exception to the general well 
working of the system. The members of the council of the 
League were equals in power and authority ; and yet from some 
provision in their organization, or from a necessity which must 
have existed with the Iroquois Council as with all conventional or 
legislative bodies, it is to be inferred that they had a head or leader 
— something answering the purposes of a speaker in our system of 
legislation, or a president, in our conventional arrangement. How 
ail this was managed it is difficult to understand. There was 
always residing in the central Onondaga nation, a sachem who 
had at least a nominal superiority; he was regarded as the head 
of the confederacy, and had dignities and honors, above his fellow 
sachems; and yet his prerogatives were only such as were tacitly 
allowed or conceded ; not derived as we would say, from any 
" constitutional " provisions. His position was an hereditary one, 
derived, as is affirmed by tradition, from an Onondaga chief — 
Ta-do-da-hoh, a famous chief and warrior, who was co-temporary 
with the formation of the confederacy. He had rendered himself 

Note. — Those into whose hands may chance to have fallen the pamphlet of the 
native Tuscarora historian, David Cusick, will remember his picture of "At-to-tar-ho." 
This was the real or imaginarj- " Ta-do-da-hoh " of Onondaga; the name varying with 
the dilTerent dialects. With rather more than the ordinary love of fancy and fiction, 
inherent in his race, the Tuscarora narrator has invested his hero with something more 
than human attributes; and has awarded to his memory, a wood cut — rude but 
graphic. He is represented as a monarch, quietly smoking his pipe, sitting in one of 
the marshes of Onondaga, giving audience to an embassy from the Mohawks, who 
have come to solicit his co-operation in the formation of a League. Living serpents 
are entwined around him, extending their hissing heads in every direction. Every 
thing around him, and the place of his residence, were such as to inspire fear and 
respect. His dishes and spoons were made of the skulls of enemies he had slain in 
battle. Him, when they had duly approached with presents, and burned tobacco in 
friendship, in their pipes, by way of frankincense, they placed at the head of the 
League as its presiding officer. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 51 

illustrious by military achievements. " Down to this day, among 
the Iroquois, his name is the personification of heroism, of forecast, 
and of dignity of character. He was reluctant to consent to the 
new order of things, as he would be shorn of his power, and placed 
among a number of equals. To remove this objection, his sachem- 
ship was dignified above the others, by certain special privileges, 
not inconsistent, however, with an equal distribution of powers ; 
and from his day to the present, this title has been regarded as 
more noble and illustrious than any other, in the catalogue of 
Iroquois nobility." 

" With a mere league of Indian nations, the constant tendency 
would be to a rupture, from remoteness of position and interest, 
and from the inherent weakness of such a compact. In the case 
under inspection, something more lasting was aimed at than a 
simple union of the five nations, in the nature of an alliance. A 
blending of the national sovereignties into one government, with 
direct and manifold relations between the people and the Confed- 
eracy, as such, was sought for and achieved by these forest 
statesmen. On first observation, the powers of the government 
appear to be so entirely centralized, that the national independencies 
nearly disappear ; but this is very far from the fact. The crowning 
feature of the Confederacy, as a political structure, is the perfect 
independence and individuality of the nations, in the midst of a 
central and embracing government, which presents such a united 
and cemented exterior, that its subdivisions would scarcely be 
discovered in transacting business with the Confederacy. This 
remarkable result was in part eflfected by the provision that the 
same rulers who governed the Confederacy in their joint capacity, 
should, in their separate state, still be the rulers of the several 
nations. 

''For all the purposes of a local and domestic, and many of a 
political character, the nations were entirely independent of each 
other. The nine Mohawk sachems administered the affairs of that 
nation with joint authority, precisely in the same manner as they 
did, in connection with others, the affairs of the League at large. 
With similar powers, the ten Cayuga sachems, by their joint 
councils, regulated the internal and domestic affairs of their nation. 
As the sachems of each nation stood upon a perfect equality, in 
authority and privileges, the measure of influence was determined 
entirely by the talents and address of the individual. In the 
councils of the nation, which were of frequent occurrence, all 
business of national concernment was transacted ; and, although the 
questions moved on such occasions would be finally settled by the 
opinions of the sachems, yet such was the spirit of the Iroquois 
system of government, that the influence of the inferior chiefs, the 



52 HISTORY OF THE 

warriors, and even of the women, would make itself felt, whenever 
the subject itself aroused a general public interest. 

" The powers and duties of the sachems were entirely of a civil 
character, but yet were arbitrary within their sphere of action. If 
we sought their warrant for the exercise of power, in the etymol- 
ogy of the word, in their language, which corresponds with sachem, 
it would intimate a check upon, rather than an enlargement of, the 
civil authority ; for it signifies, simply, ' a counsellor of the people,' 
— a beautiful and appropriate designation of a I'uler." 

There were in each of the Five Nations, and in the aggregate, 
the same number of War Chiefs as sachems. The subordination 
of the military to the civil power, was indicated upon all occasions 
of the assembling of the councils, by each sachem having a War 
Chief standing behind him to aid with his counsel, and execute 
the commands of his superior. If the two, however, went out 
upon a war party, the precedence was reversed, or in fact the 
sachem, who was supreme in council, was but a subordinate in 
the ranks. The supreme command of the war forces, and the 
general conduct of the wars of the confederacy was entrusted to 
two military chiefs raised up as the sachems were, their offices 
hereditary. These were, in all cases to be of the Seneca nation.* 

The third class of officers was created long after the organiza- 
tion of the Confederacy, since the advent of Europeans among 
them, — the chiefs. They were elected from time to time as 
necessity or convenience required, their number unlimited. Their 
])owers Vk^ere originally confined to the local affairs of their respect- 
ive nations ; they were home advisers and counsellors of the 
sachems ; but in process of time they became in some respects, 
equal in rank and authority to the sachems. 

" It is, perhaps, in itself singular that no religious functionaries 
were recognized in the Confederacy (none ever being raised up) ; 
although there were certain officers in the several nations who 
officiated at the religious festivals, which were held at stated 
seasons throughout the year. There never existed, among the 
Iroquois, a regular and distinct religious profession, or office, as 

* They likened, as will have been seen, their political edifice, to a Long: House ; its 
door opening to the West. The Senecas occnpying the door way, at the West, where 
hostile onsets were looked for, the location of the chief military commanders was 
assigned to them. It was the province of the Senecas, from their location, to first 
take the war path. If invaded, they were to drive back the invaders. If too formidable 
for them, they called upon the next" allies, the Onondagas, and so on when necessary, 
to the Eastern end of the Long House, occupied by the Mohawks. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 53 

among most nations ; and it was, doubtless, owing to the simplicity, 
as well as narrowness, of their religious creed. 

" With the otficers above enumerated, the administration of the 
Confederacy was entrusted. The government sat lightly upon the 
people, who, in effect, were governed but little. It seemed to each 
that individual independence, which the Hodenosaunce knew how 
to prize as well as the Saxon ; and which, amid all political changes, 
they have contrived to preserve. The institutions which would be 
expected to exi-st under the government whose frame-work has 
just been sketched, would necessarily be simple. Their mode of 
life, and limited wants, the absence of all property, and the infre- 
([uency of crime, dispensed with a vast amount of the legislation 
and machinery, incident to the protection of civilized society. 
While, therefore, it would be unreasonable to seek those high 
(lualities of mind, which result from ages of cultivation, in such a 
I'ude state of existence, it would be equally irrational to regard the 
Indian character as devoid of all those higher characteristics which 
ennoble the human race. If he has never contributed a page to 
science, nor a discovery to art ; if he loses, in the progress of 
generations, as much as he gains ; still, there are certain qualities 
of his mind which shine forth in all the lustre of natural perfection, 
and which must ever elicit admiration. His simple integrity, liis 
generosity, his unbounded hospitality, his love of truth, and, above 
all, his unbroken fidelity, — a sentiment inborn, and standing out so 
conspicuously in his character, that it has, not untruthfully, become 
its living characteristic ; all these are adornments of humanity, 
which no art of education can instill, nor refinement of civilization 
can bestow. If they exist at all, it is because the gifts of the 
Deity have never been debased. The high state of public morals, 
celebrated by the poet as reached and secured under Augustus, it 
was the higher and prouder boast of the Iroquois never to have lost. 
In such an atmosphere of moral purity, he grew up to manhood. 

' Culpari metuit fides : 
Nullis polluitur casta domus stupris : 
Mos et lex maculosum edomuit nefas.' 

If our Indian predecessor, with the virtues and blemishes, the 
power and weakness, which alternate in his character, is ever 
rightly comprehended, it will be the result of an insight into his 
social relations, and an understanding of the institutions which 
reflect the higher elements of his intellect." 

In each nation there were eight tribes, which were arranged in 
two divisions and named as follows : — 

Wolf, Bear, Beaver, Turtle, 

Deer, Snipe, Heron, Hawk. 

"The division of the people of each nation into eight tribes, 



54 ' HISTORY OF THE 

whether pre-existmg, or perfected at the establishment of the Con- 
feracy did not terminate in its objects with the nation itself. It 
became the means of effecting the most perfect union of separate 
nations 'ever devised by the wit of man.' In effect, ihe Wolf 
Tribe was divided into five parts, and one-fifth of it placed in each 
of the five nations. The remaining tribes were subjected to the 
same division and distribution: thus giving to each nation the eight 
tribes, and making in their separated state, forty tribes in the Con- 
federacy. Between those of the same name — or in other words, 
between the separated parts of each tribe — there existed a tie of 
brotherhood which linked the nations together with indissoluble 
bonds. The Mohawk of the Beaver Tribe, recognized the Seneca 
of the Beaver Tribe as his brother, ;ind they were bound to each 
(ither by the ties of consanguinity. In like manner the Oneida of 
the Turtle or other Tribe, received the Cayuga, or the Onondaga 
of the same tribe, as a brother ; and with a fraternal welcome. 
This cross-relationship between the tribes of the same name, and 
which was stronger, if possible, than the chain of brotherhood 
between the several tribes of the same nation, is still preserved in 
all its original strength. It doubtless furnishes the chief reason of 
the tenacity with which the fragments of the old Confederacy still 
cling together. If either of the five nations had wished to cast off 
the affiance, it must also have broken the bond of brotherhood. 
Had the nations fallen into collision, it would have turned Hawk 
Tribe against Hawk Tribe, Heron against Heron, in a word, 
brother against brother. The history of the Hodenosaunee exhibits 
the wisdom of these organic provisions ; for they never fell into 
anarchy during the long period which the league subsisted ; nor 
even approximated to a dissolution of the Confederacy from inter- 
nal disorders. 

" With the progress of the inquiry, it becomes more apparent 
that the Confederacy was in effect a League of Tribes. With the 
ties of kindred as its principle of union, the whole race was inter- 
w^oven into one great family, composed of tribes in its first subdi- 
vision (for the nations were counterparts of each other); and the 
tribes themselves, in their subdivisions, composed of parts of many 
households. Without these close inter-relations, resting, as many 
of them do, upon the strong impulses of nature, a mere alliance 
between the Iroquois nations would have been feeble and transitory. 

" In this manner was constructed the Tribal League of the Hode- 
nosaunee ; in itself, an extraordinary specimen of Indian legislation. 
Simple in its foundation upon the Family Relationship; effective, in 
the lasting vigor inherent in the ties of kindred ; and perfect in its 
success, in achieving a lasting and harmonious union of the nations; 
it forms an enduring monument to that proud and progressive race, 
who reared under its protection, a wide-spread Indian sovereignty. 

"AU the institutions of the Iroquois, have regard to the division 
of the people into tribes. Originally with reference to marriage, 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 55 

the Wolf, Bear, Beaver and Turtle Tribes, were brothers to each 
other, and cousins to the remaining four. They were not allowed 
to intermarry. The opposite four tribes were also brothers to each 
other, and cousins to the first four ; and were also prohibited from 
intermarrying. Either of the first four tribes, however, could 
intermarry with either of the last four ; thus Hawk could inter- 
marry with Bear or Beaver, Heron with Turtle ; but not Beaver 
and Turtle, nor Deer and Deer. Whoever violated these laws of 
marriage incurred the deepest detestation and disgrace. In process 
of time, however, the rigor of the system was relaxed, until finally, 
the prohibition was confined to the tribe of the individual, which 
among the residue of the Iroquois, is still religiously observed. 
They can now marry into any tribe but their own. Under the 
original as well as modern regulation, the husband and wife were 
of different tribes. The children always followed the tribe of the 
mother. 

"As the whole Iroquois system rested upon the tribes as an 
organic division of the people, it was very natural that the separate 
rights of each should be jealously guarded. Not the least remark- 
able among their institutions, of which most appear to have been 
original with the race, was that which confined the transmission 
of all titles, rights and property in the female line to the exclusion 
of the male. It is strangely unlike the canons of descent adopted 
by civilized nations, but it secured several important objects. If 
the Deer Tribe of the Cayugas, for example, received a sachem- 
ship or warchiefship at the original distribution of these offices, 
the descent of such title being limited to the female line, it could 
never pass out of the tribe. It thus became instrumental in giving 
the tribe individuality. A still more marked result, and perhaps 
leading object, of this enactment was, the perpetual disinheritance 
of the son. Being of the tribe of his mother, it formed an impas- 
sable barrier against him ; and he could neither succeed his father 
as a sachem, nor inherit from him even his medal, or his toma- 
hawk. The inheritance, for the protection of tribal rights, was 
thus directed from the descendants of the sachem, to his brothers, 
his sisters, children, or some individual of the tribe at large under 
certain circumstances ; each and all of whom were in his tribe, 
while his children being in another's tribe, as before remarked, 
were placed out of the line of succession. 

"By the operation of this principle, also, the certainty of descent 
in the tribe, of their principal chiefs, was secured by a rule infal- 
lible ; for the child must be the son of its mother, although not 
necessarily of its mother s husband. If the purity of blood be of 
any moment, the lawgivers of the Iroquois established the only 
certain rule the case admits of, whereby the assurance might be 
enjoyed that the ruling sachem was of the same family or tribe 
with the first taker of the title. 

" The Iroquois mode of computing degrees of consanguinity 



56 HISTORY OF THE 

was unlike that of the civil or canon law ; but was yet a clear and 
definite system. No distinction was made between the lineal and 
collateral line, either in the ascending or descending series. The 
maternal grandmother and her sisters were equally grandmothers ; 
the mother and her sisters were equally mothers ; the children of 
a mother's sisters were brothers and sisters ; the children of a 
sister would be nephews and nieces ; and the grandchildren of a 
sister would be his grandchildren — that is to say, the grandchil- 
dren of the propositus, or individual from whom the degree of 
relationship is reckoned. These were the chief relatives within 
the tribe, though not fully extended to number. Out of the tribe, 
the paternal grandfather and his brothers were equally grand- 
fathers ; the father and his brothers equally fathers ; the father's 
sisters were aunts, while, in the tribe, the mother's brothers were 
uncles ; the father's sister's children would be cousins as in the 
civil law ; the children of these cousins would be nephews and 
nieces, and the children of these nephews and nieces would be 
his grandchildren, or the grandchilden of the propositus. Again : 
the children of a brother would be his children, and the grand- 
children of a brother would be his grandchildren ; also, the 
children of a father's brothers, are his brothers and sisters, instead 
of cousins, as under the civil law ; and lastly, their children are 
his grandchildren, or the grandchildren of the propositus. 

"It was the leading object of the Iroquois law of descent, to 
merge the collateral in the lineal line, as sufficiently appears in 
the above outline. By the civil law, every departure from the 
common ancestor in the descending series, removed the collateral 
from the lineal ; while, by the law under consideration, the two 
lines w^ere finally brought into one.* Under the civil law mode of 
computation, the degrees of relationship become too remote to be 
traced among collaterals; while, by the mode of the Iroquois, none 
of the collaterals were lost by remoteness of degree. The number 
of those linked together by the nearer family ties, was largely mul- 
tiplied by preventing, in this manner, the subdivision of a family 
into collateral branches. 

" The succession of the rulers of the Confederacy is one of the 
most intricate subjects to be met with in the political system of the 
Hodenosaunee. It has been so difficult to procure a satisfactory 
exposition of the enactments by which the mode of succession was 



* The following are the nnmes of the several degrees of relationship, recognized 
among the Hodenosaunee, in the language of the Seneca : 

Uncle. 

Aunt, 

Nephew. 

Niece. 

Brothers and Sisters. 

Cousin. 



Hoc-sote, 


Grandfather. 


Hoc-no-seh, 


Uc-sote, 


Grandmother. 


Ah-geh-huc, 


Ha-nih, 


Father. 


Ha-yan-wan-deh, 


Noh-yeh, 


Mother. 


Ka-yan-wan-deh, 


Ho-ah-wuk, 


Son. 


Da-ya-gwa-dan-no-da, 


Go-ah wuk. 


Daughter. 


Ah-gare-seh, 


Ka-va-da, 


Grandchildren, 





HOLLAND PURCHASE. 57 

regulated, that the sachemships have sometimes been considered 
elective ; at others, as hereditary. Many of the obstacles which 
beset the inquiry are removed by the single fact, that the titles of 
sachem and war-chief are absolutely hereditary in the tribe to which 
they were originally assigned ; and can never pass out of it, but 
with its extinction. How far these titles were hereditary in that 
part of the family of the sachem or war-chief, who were of the 
same tribe with himself, becomes the true question to consider. 
The sachem's brothers, and the sons of his sisters, are of his tribe, 
and consequently in the line of succession. Between a brother 
and a nephew of the deceased, there was no law which estab- 
Ushed a preference ; neither between several brothers, on the one 
hand, and several sons of a sister, on the other, was there any law 
of primogeniture ; nor, finally, was there any positive law, that the 
choice should be confined to the brothers of the deceased ruler, or 
the descendants of his sister in the female line, until all these should 
fail, before a selection could be made from the tribe at large. 
Hence, it appears, so far as positive enactments were concerned, 
that the offices of sachem and war-chief, as between the eight 
tribes, were hereditary in the particular tribe in which they ran; 
while they were elective, as between the male members of the 
tribe itself. 

" In the absence of laws, designating with certainty the indi- 
vidual upon whom the inheritance should fall, custom would come 
in and assume the force of law, in directing the manner of choice, 
from among a number equally eligible. Upon the decease of a 
sachem, a tribal council assembled to determine upon his successor. 
The choice usually fell upon a son of one of the deceased ruler's 
sisters, or upon one of his brothers — in the absence of physical 
and moral objections ; and this preference of one of his near 
relatives would be suggested by feelings of respect for his memory. 
Infancy was no obstacle : it uniting only the necessity of setting 
over him a guardian, to discharge the duties of a sachem until he 
reached a suitable age. It sometimes occurred that all the rela- 
tives of the deceased were set aside, and a selection was made 
from the tribe generally ; but it seldom thus happened, unless from 
the great unfitness of the near relatives of the deceased. 

" When the individual was finally determined, the nation sum- 
moned a council, in the name of the deceased, of all the sachems 
of the league ; and the new sachem was raised up by such council, 
and invested with his office. 

" In connection with the power of the tribes to designate the 
sachems and war-chiefs, should be noticed the equal power of 
deposition. If, by misconduct, a sachem lost the confidence and 
respect of tribe, and became unworthy of authority, a tribal council 
at once deposed him ; and, having selected a successor, summoned 
a council of the Confederacy, to perform the ceremony of his 
investiture. 



58 HISTORY OF THE 

"Still further to illustrate the characteristics of the tribes of the 
Iroquois, some reference to their mode of bestowing names would 
not be inapt.* Soon after the birth of an infant, the near relatives 
of the same tribe selected a name. At the lirst subsequent council 
of the nation, the birth and name were publicly announced, 
together with the name and tribe of the father, and the name and 
tribe of the mother. In each nation the proper names were so 
strongly marked by a tribal peculiarity, that the tribe of the indi- 
vidual could usually be determined from the name alone. Making, 
as they did, a part of their language, they were, consequently, all 
signilicant. When an individual was raised up as a sachem, his 
original name was laid aside, and that of the sachemship itself 
assumed. The war-chief followed the same rule. In like manner, 
at the raising up of a chief, the council of the nation which per- 
forms the ceremony, took away the former name of the incipient 
chief and assigned him a new one, perhaps, like Napoleon's titles, 
commemorative of the event which led to its bestowment. Thus, 
when the celebrated Red-Jacket was elevated by election to the 
dignity of chief, his original name, 0-te-ti-an-i (Always Ready) 
was taken from him, and in its place was bestowed Sa-go-ye- 
WAT-HA, (Keeper Awake,) in allusion to the powers of his eloquence. 

" It now remains to define a tribe of the Hodenosaunee. From 
the preceding considerations it sufficiently appears, that it was not, 
like the Grecian and Roman, a circle or group of families ; ibr two 
tribes were, necessarily, represented in every family : neither, like 
the Jewish, was it constituted of the hneal descendants of a com- 
mon father ; on the contrary, it distinctly involves the idea of 
descent from a common mother : nor has it any resemblance to the 
Scottish clan, or the Canton of the Switzer. In the formation of 
an Iroquois tribe, a portion was taken from many households, and 
bound together by a tribal bond. The bond consisted in the ties 
of consanguinity ; for all the members of the tribe, thus composed, 
were connected by relationships, which, under their law of descents, 
were easily traceable. To the tribe attached the incident of 
descent in the female line, the prohibition of intermarriage, the 
capacity of holding and exercising political rights, and the ability 
to contract and sustain relationshij^s with the other tribes. 

" The wife, her children, and her descendants in the female 
line, would, in perpetuity, be linked wuth the destinies of her own 
tribe and kindred ; while the husband, his brothers and sisters, and 
the descendants of the latter, in the female line, would, in like 
manner, be united to another tribe, and held by its affinities. 
Herein was a bond of union between the several tribes of the 
same nation, corresponding, in some degree, with the cross-rela- 



* Like the ancient Saxons, ihe Iroquois had neither a prenomen, nor a cognomen; 
but contented themselves with a single name. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 59 

tionship founded upon consanguinity, which bound together the 
tribes of the same emblem in the diflerent nations. 

" Of the comparative value of these institutions, w^hen contrasted 
with those of civilized countries, and of their capability of eleva- 
ting the race, it is not necessary here to inquire. It was the boast 
of the Iroquois that the great object of their confederacy was 
peace: — to break up the spirit of perpetual warfare, which wasted 
the red race from age to age. Such an insight into the true end 
and object of all legitimate government, by those who constructed 
this tribal league, excites as great surprise as admiration. It is 
the highest and the noblest aspect in which human institutions can 
be viewed; and the thought itself — universal peace among Indian 
races possible of attainment — was a ray of intellect from no 
ordinary mind. To consummate such a purpose, the Iroquois 
nations were to be concentrated into one political fraternity; and 
in a manner effectively to prevent off-shoots and secessions. By 
its natural growth, this fraternity would accumulate sufficient 
power to absorb adjacent nations, moulding them, successively, by 
affiliation, into one common family. Thus, in its nature, it was 
designed to be a progressive confederacy. What means could 
have been employed with greater promise of success than the 
stupendous system of relationships, which was fabricated through 
the division of the Hodenosaunee into tribes'? It was a system 
sufficiently ample to infold the whole Indian race. Unlimited in 
their capacity for extension ; inflexible in their relationships ; the 
tribes thus interleagued would have suffijred no loss of unity by 
their enlargement, nor loss of strength by the increasing distance 
between their council-fires. The destiny of this league, if it had 
been left to work out its results among the red race exclusively, it 
is impossible to conjecture. With vast capacities for enlargement, 
with remarkable durability of structure, and a vigorous, animating 
spirit, it must have attained a great elevation and a general 
supremacy." 

The Confederacy was based upon terms of perfect equality; 
equal rights and immunities were secured to each integral part. 
If in some respects there would seem to be especial privileges, and 
precedence, it is explained as arising from locality or convenience; 
as in the case of the Senecas being allowed to have the head war 
chiefs, the Mohawks being the receivers of tribute from subjugated 
nations; or the Onondagas, the central nation, supplying their Ta- 
do-da-hoh and his successors. " The nations were divided into 
classes or divisions, and when assembled in general council were 
arranged on opposite sides of the Council fire ; on the one side stood 
the Mohawks, Onondagas and Senecas, who as nations, were 
regarded as brothers to each other, but as fathers to the remainder. 



60 HISTORY OF THE 

Upon the other side were the Oneidas and Cayugas, and at a sub- 
sequent day, the Tuscai-oras ; who in Uke manner were brother 
nations by interchange, but sons to the three first. These divisions 
were in harmony with their system of relationships, or more prop- 
erly formed a part of it. They may have secured for the senior 
nations increased respect, but they involve no idea of dependence 
in the junior, or inequality in civil rights." 

There was no annual or other fixed periods for the assembling 
of the general Council. It was convened only when there was 
occasion for it. When not in session, there was no visible general 
government; nor in fact, a need of any, as the local governments 
were so constituted as to subserve all the ordinay purposes. When 
events occured that concerned the general welfare, the council was 
convened, the business despatched, and then followed a mutual 
prorogation; an example worthy of imitation by modern legislators. 
With the Iroquois law makers, however, there was no self-sacrifice 
involved, no inducement to protracted sessions. Their services 
were gratuitous. Having no other government, the councils were 
the sole arbiters in all their concerns : — they made war, planned 
systems of offence and defence ; regulated successions, their ath- 
letic games, dances and feasts. " The Hfe of the Iroquois was 
either spent in the chase, or the war path, or at the council fire." 
Simplicity marked every feature of their system, and yet all was 
eflfective, and accomplished its purpose. Councils were convened 
by runners who were sent out with their belts of wampum, indica- 
ting the nature of the emergency, or the business in hand. In 
proportion as it was urgent, or interesting, would be the attendance 
of lay members, or those who constitute "the third house," in 
modern legislation. Upon important occasions, when matters^ of 
great moment were to be discussed and determined, the villages of 
the several nations would be nearly depopulated ; the mass of the 
subjects of the League would flock to the council fire, and make a 
formidable lobby in its precincts. Their interests and curiosity, it 
is affirmed were excited by a regard for the general welfare. There 
were no special favors to be asked or granted. This was a long 
while anterior to the invention of the system of "log-rolling." 
The primitive children of the forest, were less sinister in all their 
motives and incentives, than the race that has succeeded them. 
Among the general powers vested in the council of the confede- 
racy, may be enumerated those of declaring war and making 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 61 

peace, of admitting new nations into the league, or of incorporating 
fragments of nations into those existing, of extending jurisdiction 
over subjugated territory, of levying tribute, of sending and renevi^- 
ing embassies, of forming alliances, and of enacting and executing 
law^s. Unanimity was a fundamental law.* The idea of majori- 
ties and minorities was entirely unknown to our Indian predecessors. 
To hasten their deliberations to a conclusion and ascertain the 
result, they adopted an expedient which dispensed entirely with the 
necessity of casting votes. The founders of the Confederacy, 
seeking to obviate as far as possible, altercations in council, and to 
facilitate their progress to unanimity, divided the sachems of each 
nation into classes, usually of two and three each. Each sachem 
was forbidden to express an opinion in council, until he had agreed 
with the other sachems of his class, upon the opinion to be 
expressed, and had received an appointment to act as speaker of 
his class. Thus the eight Seneca sachems, being in four classes, 
could have but four opinions ; the ten Cayuga sachems but four. 
In this manner, each class was brought to unanimity within itself. 
A cross consultation was then held between the four sachems who 
represented the four classes, and when they had agreed, they 
appointed one of their number to express their opinion, which was 
the answer of the nation. The several nations having by this 
ingenious method become of "one mind," separately, it remained 
to compare their several opinions, to arrive at the final sentiment 
of all the sachems of the league. This was effected by a cross 
conference between the individual representatives of the several 
nations ; and when they had arrived at unanimity, the answer of 
the Confederacy was determined, f 

When the white man first entered this, the country of the Seneca 
Iroquois, he found deeply indented, well trodden paths, threading 
the forests in different directions. They led from village to village, 
thence to their favorite hunting and fishing grounds, or here 

* Their war ajrainst the French was declared by a unanimous vote. After this, when 
the question came up of taking the British side in the war of the Revolution, the coun- 
cil was divided, a number of the Oneida sachems strongly opposing it, and although 
most of the confederates were allies of the English in that contest, it was an act of the 
League, but each nation chose its own position. 

tThe senate of the United States, in 1838, committed a great error in abrogating this 
unanimity principle, and substituting the rule of the majority, in reference to the sale of 
Seneca lands to the pre-emptionists. It was over-riding an ancient law of the confede- 
racy, and in fact, as was the ultimate result, aiding a system of coercion and bribery, to 
dispossess them of their reservations. 



62 HISTORY OF THE 

and there marked their intercourse with neighboring aboriginal 
nations. They are termed Trails. They were the routes pursued 
by the French Missionaries and traders, by the Dutch and English 
in their intercourse with the Indians; by the British troops and 
Indians of Canada in their incursions into Western New-York, 
during the Revolution; by Butler's rangers, in all their bloody 
enterprises to the valleys of the Mohawk and Susquehannah; and 
afterwards guided our early Pioneers through the forest, enabling 
them to appreciate the beauty and value of this goodly land. With 
reference to the Holland Purchase, these trails M'ere mainly as 
follows : — 

The trail from the east, the valleys of the Hudson, the Mohawk, 
&c., passing through Canandaigua, West Bloomfield and Lima, 
came upon the Genesee River at Avon; crossing the River a few- 
rods above the Bridge it went up the west bank to the Indian 
village a mile above the ford, and then bore off north-west to Cale- 
donia. Turning westward, it crossed Allen's creek at Le Roy, and 
Black creek at Stafford, coming upon the banks of the Tonawanda 
a little above Batavia. Passing down the east bank of that stream, 
around what was early known as the Great Bend, at the Arsenal it 
turned north-west, came upon the openings at Caryville, and bearing 
westwardly across the openings it crossed the Tonawanda at the 
Indian village. Here the trail branched: — one branch taking a 
north-westwardly direction, re-crossed the creek below the village, 
and passing through the Tonawanda swamp, emerged from it nearly 
south-east of Royalton Centre, coming out upon the Lockport and 
Batavia road in the valley of Millard's Brook, and from thence it 
continued upon the Chestnut Ridge to the Cold Springs. Pursuing 
the route of the Lewiston road, with occasional deviations it struck 
the Ridge Road at Warren's. It followed the Ridge until it passed 
Hopkins' Marsh, when it gradually ascended the Mountain Ridge, 
passed through the Tuscarora village, and then down again to the 
Ridge Road, which it continued on to the River. This was the 
principal route into Canada, crossing from Lewiston to Queenston; 
a branch trail however, going down the River to Fort Niagara. 

The other branch of the trail leaving the village of Tonawanda, 
took a south-west direction, and crossing Murder creek at Akron, it 
came upon the Buffalo road at Clarence Hollow ; from thence 
west, nearly on the line of the Buffalo road to Williams ville, cross- 
ing Ellicott's creek it continued its westerlv course to the Cold 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 63 

Springs near Buffalo, and entering the city at what ha.s since 
become the head of Main Street, it came out at the mouth of Buf- 
falo creek. A branch Trail diverging at Clarence came upon 
the Cayuga branch of the Buffalo creek at Lancaster, thence down 
that stream to the Seneca village, and down the Buffalo creek to 
its entrance into the lake. 

The Ontario trail, starting from Oswego, came upon the Ridge 
Road at Irondequoit Bay; then turning up the Bay to its head, 
where a branch trail went to Canandaigua, it turned west, crossing 
the Genesee River at the acqueduct, and passing down the river, 
came again upon the Ridge Road, which it pursued west to near 
the west line of Hartland, Niagara county, where it diverged to the 
south-west, crossing the east branch of the Eighteen-mile Creek, 
and forming a junction with the Canada or Niagara trail at the Cold 
Springs. 

From Mount Morris, on the Genesee River, a trail passed up the 
river to Gardow, and Canadea, and from thence to Allegany River 
at Olean. 

A trail left Little Beard's Town on the Genesee river, and cross- 
ing the east line of the Holland Purchase, entered it in the north 
side of T. 10 R. 1, and crossing the north-east corner of T. 10 
R. 2, and south-west corner of T. 1 1 same range, passed through 
the south sides of T. 11 R. 3. T. 11 R. 4, T. 11 R. 5, entered the 
Seneca Reservation at the south-west corner of the latter township ; 
and pursuing a westerly course, came upon the banks of Buffalo 
creek, near the Seneca hidian village. 

These were the principal highways of the Seneca Iroquois. 
How nearly the simple primitive paths of the aborigines, corres- 
pond with our now principal thorough-fares ; but how changed ! 
The trails are obliterated in the progress of improvement, the forests 
that enshrouded them are principally cleared away, and in their 
place are turnpikes, M'Adam roads, canals, rail roads, and tele- 
graphic posts and wires. The waters upon which they paddled 
their bark canoes, supply our canals; the swamps they avoided, 
and the ridges they traversed, are passed along and across by our 
steam propelled locomoti-ves. The "forked lightning," they saw 
in the clouds, which occasionally scathed the tall trees of their 
forest home, reminding them of the power and omnipotence of the 
Great Spirit they adored, the Manitou of their simple creed, — is 



64 HISTORY OF THE 

tamed, and in an instant accomplishes the purposes, that employed 
their swiftest runners for days ! 

" The wild man hates restraint, and loves to do what is right in 
his own eyes."* Hence there was little in all the frame work of 
the government of the Iroquois, of restraint or coercive laws. They 
seemed to have acted upon the maxim that "nations are governed 
too much." And this principle extended in a great degree to family 
government. Their children were reproved, not injured or beaten, 
and none but the milder forms of punishment ever resorted to. 
Theirs was a simple form of government — so simple as to excite a 
wonder that it could have been effectual; — an oligarchy, and yet 
cherishing the democratic principle, of the common good; an here- 
ditary council in whom was vested all power, and yet there was no 
castes, no privileged orders; no conventional or social exclusiveness. 
Their system of government, like themselves, is a mystery. Both 
have been but imperfectly understood; both are well worthy of 
enquiry and investigation. The student, or historical reader of 
our country, may well turn occasionally from the beaten track of 
our colleges and schools — from the histories of far off ages, races 
and people — and taking the humble "trails" of the Iroquois, see if 
there is not in the history of our own country — our predecessors — 
that which will interest and instruct him. 

As has been assumed in the preceding pages, the Seneca branch 
of the Iroquois were our immediate predecessors; but we gather 
from their traditions, and from the writings of the earliest Jesuit 

Note. — At the time of the delivery of the admirable ' Letters on the Iroquois,' 
before the N. Y. Historical Society ; or rather when that portion of them which related 
to the Trails was read. Dr. Peter Wilson, an educated Cayuga chief, happened to be 
present. He accepted an invitation to address the Society. ' He spoke with such 
pathos and eloquence of his people and his race, their ancient prowess and generosity — 
their present weakness and dependence — and especially upon the hard fate of a small 
band of Senacas and Cayugas which had recently been hurried into the western 
wilderness to perish, that all present were deeply moved by his eloquence.' ' The land 
of Ga-nun-no, or the ' Empire State' as you love to call it, was once laced by our 
Trails from Albany to Buffalo — Trails that we had trod for centuries — trails worn so 
deep by the feet of the Iroquois, that they became your roads of travel as your pos- 
sessions gradually eat into those of my people ! Your roads still traverse those same 
lines of communication which bound one part of the Long House to the other. Have 
we, the first holders of this prosperous region, no longer a share in your history ? 
Glad were your fathers to set down upon the threshold of the Long House. Rich did 
they hold themselves in getting the mere sweepings from its door. Had our forefathers 
spurned you from it when the French were thundering at the opposite side to get a 
passage through, and drive you into the sea, whatever has been the fate of other 
Indians, we might still have had a nation, and I — I, instead of pleading here for the 
privilege of lingering within your borders, I — I might have had a country.' 

* Bancroft 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 65 

Missionaries, that they had only possessed the country west of the 
Genesee river, since about the middle of the seventeenth century. 
In the "Relations of the Jesuits" there is a letter from Father L' 
Allemant to the Provincial of the Jesuits in France, dated at St. 
Mary's Mission, May 19, 1641, in which he gives an account of a 
journey made to the country of the Neuter Nation the year previous, 
by Jean de Brebeuf and Joseph Marie Chaumonot, two Jesuit 
Fathers. As this letter is one of the earliest reminiscence of this 
region, other than Indian tradition, the author copies it entire: 

"Jean de Brebeuf and Joseph Marie Chaumonot, two Fathers 
of our company which have charge of the Mission to the Neuter 
Nation set out from St. Marie on the 2d day of November, 1640, to 
visit this people. Father Brebeuf is peculiarly fitted for such an 
expedition, God having in an eminent degree endowed him with a 
capacity for learning languages. His companion was also consid- 
ered a proper person for the enterprise. 

"Although many of our French in that quarter have visited this 
people to profit by their furs and other commodities, we have no 
knowledge of any who have been there to preach the gospel except 
Father De la Roch Daillon, a Recollect, who passed the winter 
there in the year 1626. 

" The nation is very populous, there being estimated about forty 
villages. After leaving the Hurons it is four or five days journey 
or about forty leagues to the nearest of their villages, the course 
being nearly due south. If, as indicated by the latest and most 
exact observations we can make, our new station, St. Marie,* in 
the interior of the Huron country, is in north latitude about 44 
degrees, 25 minutes, then the entrance of the Neuter Nation from 
the Huron side, is about 44 degrees, f More exact surveys and 
observations, cannot now be made, for the sight of a single instru- 
ment would bi'ing to extremes those who cannot resist the 
temptation of an inkhorn. 

" From the first village of the Neuter Nation that we met with in 
travelling from this place, as we proceed south or southwest, it is 
about four days travel to the place where the celebrated river of 
the nation empties into lake Ontario, or St. Louis. On the west 
side of that river, and not on the east, are the most numerous of 
the villages of the Neuter Nation. There are three or four on the 
east side, extending from east to west towards the Eries, or Cat 
nation." 



Note. — This would of course be along our side of the Niagara, and probably 
extended along the shores of lake Erie. 

* A Jesuit Mission on the river Severn, near the eastern extremity of lake Huron. 
t The good father is about a degree out of the way. 
5 



66 HISTORY OF THE 

'' This river is that by which our great lake of the Hurons, or 
fresh sea, is discharged, which first empties into the lake of Erie, 
or of the nation of the Cat, from thence it enters the territory of the 
Neuter Nation, and takes the name of Onguiaahra, (Niagara,) until 
it empties into Ontario or St. Louis lake, from which latter flows 
the river which passes before Quebec, called the St. Lawrence, so 
that if we once had control of the side of the lake nearest the 
residence of the Iroquois, we could ascend by the river St. 
Lawrence, without danger, even to the Neuter Nation, and much 
beyond, with great saving of time and trouble. 

'* According to the estimate of these illustrious fathers who have 
been there, the Neuter Nation comprises about 12,000 souls, which 
enables them to furnish 4,000 warriors, notwithstanding war, 
pestilence and famine have prevailed among them for three years 
in an extraordinary manner. 

'' After all, I think that those who have heretofore ascribed such 
au extent and population to this nation, have understood by the 
Neuter Nation, all who live south and southwest of our Hurons, and 
who are truly in great number, and, being at first only partially 
known, have all been comprised under the same name. The more 
perfect knowledge of their language and country, which has since 
been obtained, has resulted in a clearer distinction between the tribes. 
Our French who first discovered this people, named them the 'Neu- 
ter Nation'; and not without reason, for their country being the 
ordinary passage, by land, between some of the Iroquois nations 
and the Hurons, who are sworn enemies, they remained at peace 
with both ; so that in times past, the Hurons and Iroquois, meeting 
in the same wigwam or village of that nation, were both in safety 
while they remained. Recently, their enmity against each other 
is so great, that there is no safety for either party in any place, 
particularly for the Hurons, for whom the Neuter Nation entertain 
the least good will. 

" There is every reason for believing, that not long since, the 
Hurons, Iroquois, and Neuter Nations, formed one people, and 
originally came from the same family, but have in the lapse of time, 
became separated from each other, more or less, in distance, 
interests and affection, so that some are now enemies, others 
neutral, and others still live in intimate friendship and intercourse. 

" The food and clothing of the N^ter Nation seem Uttle different 
from that of our Hurons. They have Indian corn, beans and 
gourds in equal abundance. Also plenty of fish, some kinds of 
which abound in particular places only. 

"They are much employed in hunting deer, buflfalo, wildcats, 
wolves, wild boars, beaver, and other animals. Meat is very 
abundant this year, an account of the heavy snow, w^hich has 
aided the hunters. It is rare to see snow in this country more 
than half a foot deep. But this year it is more than three feet. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 67 

There is also abundance of wild turkeys, which go in flocks in tiie 
fields and woods. 

" Their fruits are the same as with the Hurons, except chestnuts, 
which are more abundant, and crab apples, which are somewhat 
larger. 

" The men, like all savages, cover their naked flesh with skins. 
but are less particular than the Hurons in concealing what should 
not appear. The squaws are ordinarily clothed, at least from the 
waist to the knees, but are more free and shameless in their immod- 
esty than the Hurons. 

"As for their remaining customs and manners, they are almost 
entirely similar to the other savage tribes of the country. 

" There are some things in which they differ from our Hurons. 
They are larger, stronger, and better formed. They also entertain 
a great affection for the dead, and have a greater number of fools 
or jugglers. 

" The Sonontonheronons, (Senecas) one of the Iroquois nations, 
the nearest to and most dreaded by the Hurons, are not more than 
a day's journey distant from the easternmost village of the Neuter 
Nation, named 'Onguiaahra' (Niagara) of the same name as the 
river. 

"Our fathers returned from the mission in safety, not having 
found in all the eighteen villages which they visited, but one, 
named ^Khe-o-e-to-a,'' or St. Michael, which gave them the reception 
which their embassy deserved. In this village, a certain foreign 
nation, which lived beyond the lake of Erie, or of the nation of the 
Cat, named ^A-ouen-re-ro-non^^ has taken refuge for many years for 
fear of their enemies, and they seem to have been brought here by 
a good Providence, to hear the word of God." 

Charlevoix says that in the year 1642, " a people, larger, 
stronger, and better formed than any other savages, and who lived 
south of the Huron country, were visited by the Jesuits, who 
preached to them the Kingdom of God. They were called the 
Neuter Nation, because they took no part in the wars which deso- 
lated the country. But in the end, they could not themselves, 
escape entire destruction. To avoid the fury of the Iroquois, they 
finally joined them against the Hurons, but gained nothing by the 
union. The Iroquois, that like lions that have tasted blood, cannot be 
satiated, destroyed indiscriminately all that came in their way, and 
at this day, there remains no trace of the Neuter Nation." In 
another place, the same author says that the Neuter Nation was 
destroyed about the year 1643. La Fiteu, in his ^^Mceurs des 
Sauvages,^^ published at Paris in 1724, relates, on the authority of 
Father Garnier, a Jesuit Missionary, the origin of the quarrel 



68 HISTORY OF THE 

between the Senecas and the Neuter Nation, which is hinted at in 
the letter of Father L' Allemant. He says, " the war did not 
terminate but by the total destruction of the Neuter Nation." 

Mr. Schoolcraft assumes that the Senecas had warred upon, 
conquered the Neuter Nation, and come in possession of their terri- 
tory, twenty-four years before the advent of La Salle upon the 
Niagara river. A writer in the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser of 
March, 1846, who is named in the preface of this work, says: — 
"From all that can be derived from history, it is very probable, 
that the Kah-Kwas and the Neutral Nation were identical, that the 
singular tribe whose institution of neutrality has been likened by an 
eloquent writer, to a 'calm and peaceful island looking out upon a 
world of waves and tempests,' in whose wigwams the fierce 
Hurons and relentless Iroquois met on neutral ground, fell victims 
near this city, (Buffalo) to the insatiable ferocity of the latter. 
They were the first proprietors, as far as we can learn, of the soil 
we now occupy. Their savage spoilers gave them a grave on the 
spot which they died in defending, and have recently, in their turn, 
yielded to the encroachments of a more powerful adversary. The 
white man is now lord of the soil where the fires of the nation are 
put out forever. Around that scene, the proudest recollections and 
devout associations of the Senecas have long loved to linger. Let 
it be forever dedicated to the repose of the dead. Let the sanctity 
of the grave be inviolate. A simple enclosure should protect a 
spot which will increase in interest with the lapse of time." * 

The Senecas have within few years, yielded to the importunities 
and appliances of the pre-emptionists, and abandoned their Reser- 
vation. It is now in the hands of another race. The plough, the 
pickaxe and spade, will soon obliterate all that remains of the 
evidences of the conquests of their ancestors. " It is a site around 
which the Senecas have clung, as if it marked an era in their 
national history; although the work was clearly erected by their 
enemies. It has been the seat of their government or council fire, 
from an early period of our acquaintance with them. It was here 
that Red Jacket uttered some of his most eloquent harrangues 
against the steady encroachments of the white race, and in favor 

* The spot here alluded to, is upon the Reservation near Buffalo, on the creek, near 
the old council and mission houses. The author has included it in some preceding 
notices of ancient remains ; but yielding to the better knowledge in this branch of 
historj', of the author of the above extract, he is disposed to regard it as he has assumed, 
the field of final conquest of this region, by the Senecas. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 69 

of retaining this cherished portion of their lands, and transmitting 
them with full title to their descendants. It was here that the 
noted captive, Dehewamis, better known as Mary Jemison, came 
to live after a long life of most extraordinary vicissitudes. And it 
is here that the bones of the distinguished orator, and the no less 
distinguished captive, rest, side by side, with a multitude of 
warriors, chiefs and sages. But there will soon be no one left 
whose heart vibrates with the blood of a Seneca, to watch the 
venerated resting places of their dead." * 

And in this connection it may be well to observe generally, that at 
the period when the French Missionaries and traders first reached 
the southern shores of lake Ontario and the Niagara river, the 
Neuter Nation was in possession of the region west of the Genesee 
river, including both sides of the Niagara river. The immediate 
domain of the Senecas, was east of the Genesee, until it reached 
that of the Cayugas. The Hurons occupied the interior of Canada 
West, west to lake Huron. The domain of the Eries, or Cat nation, 
according to Hennepin, commenced upon the southern shore of 
lake Erie, the dividing line between them and the Neuter Nation 
being about midway, up the lake. After the conquest of the Neuter 
Nation, the Senecas conquered the Eries, as is supposed, about the 
year 1653. 

There are few into whose hand this local history will fall, who 
are not familiar with the general character, domestic habits, &c., 
of the aborigines. The first settlers of the Holland Purchase, 
had them for their primitive neighbors, and they even now, 
diminished as they are, linger among us in four localities: — at 
Tuscarora, Tonawanda, Cattaraugus and Alleghany. Their 
eloquence, their deeds of valor, their peculiarly interesting traits of 
character; the wrongs they have done our race, as traced in the 
often too highly colored, but generally truthful legends of the 
Mohawk and the Susquehannah; and the terrible retributions that 
have, in turn, been visited upon their race, in the extinguishing 
of most of the fires that " blazed in their Long House from the 
Hudson to lake Erie" — in subjecting them to the urgent and 
pressing overtures of pre-emptionists, who were better schooled 
in the diplomacy of bargain and gain, than were these men of 
simple habits and of honest impulses; and last and worst of all, 

* Schoolcraft. 



70 HISTORY OF THE 

in visiting upon them the curse of the darker features of civiliza- 
tion. With all this, the reader, in most instances, will be familiar; 
a part of it is interwoven in the nursery tales of our region. The 
author has only aimed thus far to give a general idea of the 
Indians as found here by the first European adventurers, and afford 
an insight, an induction, into their political institutions, their system 
of government, laws, &c, , which have been subjects of too recent 
investigation, to admit of any very general familiarity with them. 
He is admonished that this branch of his main subject, is occupying 
too much space here, inasmuch as the Seneca Iroquois especially, 
must be frequently mingled with the local annals of our own race, 
as they will occur in chronological narrative. 



PART SECOND. 



CHAPTER I. 

EARLY EUROPEAN VOYAGES AND DISCOVERIES. 



The prevailing spirit of the Monarchs of Europe, and their 
subjects, during the fifteenth and a greater portion of the sixteenth 
centuries, tended to the enlargement of their dominions, and the 
extension of their powers. In the latter end of the fifteenth 
century, Columbus had discovered a New World. Spain then 
at the height of its prosperity and grandeur, profiting by the 
discoveries of an expedition that had sailed under her flag, under 
the auspices of her Queen had followed up the event, by farther 
discoveries and colonization in the Southern portion of our con- 
tinent. The reigning monarch of England, Henry VII, stimu- 
lated by regret that he had allowed a rival power to be the 
first in the discovery of a continent, the advantages and resources 
of which, as the tidings of the discovery were promulgated, dazzled 
the eyes and awakened the emulation of all Europe; ambitious to 
make his subjects co-discoverers with the subjects of the Spanish 
monarch; listened with favor to the theory of John Cabot, a 
Venetian, but a resident of England — who inferred that as lands 
had been discovered in the southwest, they might also be in the 
northwest, and offered to the king to conduct an expedition in this 
direction. 

With a commission of discovery, granted by the king, and a 
ship provided by him, and four small vessels equipped by the 
merchants of Bristol, Cabot with his son Sebastian, set sail from 
England, in less than three years after Columbus had discovered 
the Island of San Salvador. As the discovery of Columbus was 
incidental to the main object of his daring enterprise — the 
discovery of a shorter route to the Indies, — the Cabots, adopting 



72 HISTORY OF THE 

his opinion that he had discovered one of the outskirts or depend- 
encies of those countries, conceived that they had only to bear to 
the northwest, to find a still shorter route. Taking that course 
they reached the continent of North America, discovering the 
Islands of New Foundland and St. John, and sailed along it 
from the confines of Labrador to the coast of Virginia. Thus, 
England was the second nation that visited the western world, 
and the first that discovered the vast continent that stretches from 
the Gulf of Mexico towards the north pole. Instead of discovering 
a shorter route to the Indies, the one discovered a New World, 
and the other, by far the most important portions of it. 

From dissentions and troubles that existed at home, and some 
schemes of family ambition that diverted his attention, Cabot found 
his patron king, on his return, indisposed to profit by his important 
discoveries. All the benefit that accrued to England from this 
enterprise, was a priority of discovery that she afterwards had 
Jrequent occasion to assert. 

In 1498, the Cabots, father and son, made a second expedi- 
tion, with the double object of traffic with the natives, and in the 
quaint language of their commission, to explore and ascertain 
"what manner of landes those Indies were to inhabit." They 
sailed for Labrador by the way of Iceland, but on reaching the 
coast, impelled by the severity of the cold, and a declared purpose 
of exploring farther to the south, they sailed along the shores of 
the United States to the southern boundary of Maryland; after 
which, they returned to England. 

Portugal, desirous of participating in the career of discovery, in 
1501, fitted out an expedition under the command of Gaspab 
CoRTEREAL. The most northern point he gained was probably 
about the fiftieth degree. The expedition resulted in a partial 
survey of the coast, and the taking captive of fifty Indians that 
were taken to Portugal and sold as slaves. 

It was twenty-seven years after the last voyage of Cabot, under 
English auspices that Francis I, King of France, awakened by the 
spirit of adventure, and protesting against the partition that had 
made of the newly discovered continent, by the Pope, between 
Spain and Portugal, soon after its discovery; and determined not 
to overlook the commercial interests of his people; extended his 
patronage to John de Verrazana, ordering him to set sail for that 
country **of which so much was spoken at the time in France." 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 73 

The account of his first voyage is not preserved. He sailed with 
four ships, encountered storms in the north, landed in Britain; and 
going from thence to the island of Madeira, started from there 
with a single vessel, the Dolphin, with fifty men and provisions for 
eight months. After a stormy passage he arrived in latitude 34 
deg. near Wilmington, North Carolina. In his own report to his 
king and patron, he says: — 

''Great store of people came to the sea side, and seeing us 
approach they fled away, and sometimes would stand still and look 
backe, beholding us with great admiration; but afterwards, being 
animated and assured with signs that we made them, some of 
them came hard to the sea side, seeming to rejoice very much at 
the sight of us, and marvelling greatly at our apparel, shape, and 
whitenesse; shewed us by sundry signes where we might most 
commodiously come to land with our boate, offering us also victuals 
to eat. Remaining there for a few days, and taking note of the 
country, he sailed northwardly, and viewed, if he did not enter, the 
harbor of New York. In the haven of Newport he remained for 
fifteen days, where he found the natives the ' goodliest people ' he 
had seen in his whole voyage. At one period during his coasting 
along the shores of New England, he was compelled for the sake 
of fresh water, to send off" his boat. The shore was lined with 
savages ' whose countenances betrayed at the same time, surprise, 
joy and fear,' They made signs of friendship, and ' showed they 
were content we should come to land.' A boat with twenty-five 
men, attempted to land with some presents, but on nearing the 
shore were intimidated by the frightful appearance of the natives, 
and halted to turn back. One more resolute than the rest, seizing 
a few of the articles designed as presents, plunged into the water 
and advanced within three or four yards of the shore. Throwing 
them the presents, he attempted to regain the boat, but was caught 
by a wave and dashed upon the beach. The savages caught him, 
and sitting him down by a large fire, took off" his clothes. His 
comrades supposed he was to be ' roasted and eat.' Their fears 
subsided however, when they saw them testify their kindness by 
caresses. It turned out that they were only gratifying their 
curiosity in an examination of his person, the ' whitenesse of his 
skin,' &c. They released him and after ' with great love clasping 
him faste about,' they allowed him to swim to his comrades. 
Verrazana found the natives of the more northern regions more 
hostile and jealous, from having, as has been inferred, been visited 
for the purpose of carrying them off" as slaves. At another 
anchorage, after following the shore fifty leagues, * an old woman 
with a young maid of 18 or 20 yeeres old, seeing our company, hid 
themselves in the grasse for fcare; the old woman carried two 
infants on her shoulders, and behind her neck a child of 8 yeeres 



74 HISTORY OF THE 

old. The young woman was laden likewise with as many; but 
when our men came unto them the woman cried out; the old wo- 
man made signs that the men were fled into the woods. As soon 
as they saw us, to quiet them, and to win their favor, our men gave 
them such victuals as they had with them to eate, which the old 
woman received thankfully, but the young woman threw thorn 
disdainfully on the ground. They took a child from the old woman 
to bi-ing into France; and going about to take the young woman, 
which was very beautiful and of tall stature, they could not possibly, 
for the great outcries she made, bring her to the sea; and especially 
having great woodes to pass through, and being far from the ship, 
we purposed to leave her behind, bearing away the child onely.' 
At another anchorage,* 'there ran down into the sea an exceed- 
ing great streme of water, which at the mouth was very deepe, 
and from the sea to the mouthe of the same, with the tide which 
they found to raise eight foote, any great ship laden might pass up.' 
Sending up their boat the natives expressed their admiration and 
showed them where they might safely come to land. They went 
up the river half a league, where it made a 'most pleasant lake, 
about three leagues in compass, on which the natives rode from one 
side to the other to the number of thirty of their small boats, 
wherein were many people which passed from one shore to the 
other.' At another anchorage they 'met the goodliest people and 
of the fairest conditions that they had found in their voyage: — 
exceeding us in bigness — of the color of brasse, some inclining to 
whiteness, black and quick eyed, of sweete and pleasant counte- 
nance, imitating much the old fashion.' Among them, they 
discovered pieces of wrought copper, which they 'esteemed more 
than gold.' ' They did not desire cloth of silk or of gold, or of 
other sort, neither did they care for things made of steel or iron, 
which we often shewed them in our armour, which they made no 
wonder at; and in beholding them they only asked the art of making 
them; the like they did at our glasses, which when they suddenly 
beheld, they laughed and gave them to us again.' The ship neared 
the land and finally cast anchor ' in the haven,' when, continues 
Verrazana, 'we bestowed fifteen days in providing ourselves 
with many necessary things, whither every day the people repaired 
to see our ship, bringing their wives with them whereof they were 
very jelous; and they themselves entering aboard the ship and 
staying there a good space, caused their wives to stay in their 
boats; and for all the entreaty we could make, offering to give them 
divers things, we could never obtaine that they should suffer to 
to come aboard our ship. Oftentimes one of the two kings (of this 
people) comming with his queene, and many gentlemen for their 
pleasure to see us, they all staid on shore two hundred paces from 
us till they sent a message they were coming. The queene and 

* Off Sandy Hook, as has been inferred. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 75 

her maides staid in a very light boat at an island a quarter of a 
league off, while the king abode along space in the ship, uttering 
divers conceits with gestures, viewing with great admiration the 
ship, demanding the property of everything particularly. ' There 
were plaines twenty-five or thirty leagues in width, which were 
open, and without any impediment.' They entered the woods and 
found them 'so greate and thick, that any army were it never so 
greate might have hid itself therein; the trees whereof are oakes, 
cipresse, and other sorts unknown in Europe.' The natives fed 
upon pulse that grew in the country, with better order of hus- 
bandry than in the others. They observed in their sowing the 
course of the moone and the rising of certain starres, and diverse 
other customes spoken of by antiquity. They dwell together in 
great numbers, some twenty-five or thirty persons in one house. 
They are very pitifull and charitable towards their neighbors, they 
make great lamentations in their adversitie, and in their miserie, 
the kindred reckone up all their felicite. At their departure out of 
life they use mourning mixed with singing which continue th for a 
long space." 

Verrazana having coasted 700 leagues of new country, and 
being refitted with water and wood, returned to France, arriving 
at Dieppe in July, whence he addressed his letter to the king. His, 
in all probability, were the first interviews with the natives upon 
all our northern, and a part of our southern coast, and for that 
reason his narrative which gives us a glimpse of them in the 
primitive condition that civilization found them, possesses a great 
degree of interest. " We have detailed these instances in their 
favor," say Yates and Moulton, "because they occurred at a 
period when the warm native fountain of good feeling and disin- 
terested charity, had not been frozen by the chilly approach and 
death-like contact of civilized man. We have dwelt upon these 
incidents as the most interesting portion of Verrazana's 
adventures. They present human nature in an amiable point of 
view, when unsophisticated by metaphysical subtlety, undisguised 
by art, or even when adorned by the refinements, the pride and 
circumstance of civilization. They illustrate the position which 
we believe is true, that the natives of this continent, before they 
had been exasperated by the encroachments and provocations of 
Europeans, when the former were confiding and unsuspicious, 
without any foresight of the terrible disasters which their inter- 
views with the latter were destined to become the tragical prelude, 



76 HISTORY OF THE 

entertained uniform feelings of kindness, of hospitality ana 
benevolence." 

" When Columbus visited the new world, the natives viewed 
him as a super-natural being, and treated him with the veneration 
inseparable from a delusion, which Colon was willing to counte- 
nance. When Vespucius Americus landed, he also was treated 
as a superior being. When the Cabots coasted this continent, 
when C ARTIER first visited the St. Lawrence, when the French 
first settled in Florida as friends, when Sir Humphrey Gilbert, 
and after him the captains employed by Sir Walter Raleigh, 
first landed in Virginia, when Hudson discovered and explored 
our bay and river, when the Pilgrims colonized New England, the 
generous reception which they all met from the natives, should 
stand a monumental rebuke to the shameful prejudices too prevalent 
among ourselves, since we supplanted their descendants on a soil 
which their fathers left them as a patrimony. We will cite proofs 
of two instances which took place thirty-seven years apart, but 
which are given as a general illustration of our position. In the 
first report of Sir Walter Raleigh's expedition, it is said by his 
captain, and those in the employ, in 1584, that they were enter- 
tained with as much bounty as they could possibly devise. They 
found the people most gentle, loving and faithful, void of all guile 
and treason, and such as live after the manner of the golden age." 

The following is an extract from the first sermon ever preached 
in New England. It was by one of the Pilgrims, and bears date 
Dec. 1621: — ''To us they (the Indians,) have been like lambs, so 
kind, so submissive and trusty, as a man may truly say many chris- 
tians are not so kind and sincere. When we first came into this 
country we were few, and many of us were sick, and many died by 
reason of the cold and wet, it being the depth of winter, and we 
having no houses or shelter; yet when there were not six able 
persons among us, and that they came daily to us by hundreds 
with their sachems or kings, and might in one hour have made a 
dispatch of us, &c. yet they never offered us the least injury. The 
greatest commander of the country, called Massasoit, cometh 
often to visit us, though he lives fifty miles from us, often sends us 
presents, 6z;c." 

And yet aggressions and wrongs commenced on the part of our 
race in its earliest intercourse with theirs. Verrazana after the 
reception he has himself acknowledged, attempted to carry away 
two of their people; Cabot had carried two as a present to his 



HOLLAND PURCHASE 77 

sovereign Henry VII, that were never returned. The Spaniards 
and Portugese immediately followed up their first intercourse with 
them by carrying them into captivity and slavery. Can it be 
wondered that in numerous instances that occurred in after attempts 
at settlement, in New England — upon the Hudson — in Virginia, 
North Carolina &c. — this primitive good feeling — the simple 
hospitality with which they met the first adventurers upon their 
shores, gave place to self-defence — perhaps revenge] Of the 
Spaniards, and their early intercourse with them, Kotzebue 
says: — "Wherever they moved in anger, desolation tracked their 
progress, — wherever they paused in amity, affliction mourned their 
friendship." 

Well has it been observed that the Indian has had no historian 
of his own. Were some one of his own race, the chronicler of 
events; — commencing with the discovery of Columbus, and coming 
down to our present day of pre-emption bribes, and treaties attained 
with wrong and outrage; — he would gather up a fearful account 
which would meet with no adequate offsets. It would be that 
which would admit of but one manner of recompense: — the care- 
ful guardianship and protection hereafter of our states and general 
governments, and a co-operation in all measures that tend to pro- 
mote their rights, their peace and happiness, on the part of our 
people. 

On the 20th of April, 1534, James Cartier, a mariner of St. 
Malo, was commissioned by Francis First, to fit out an expedition 
for the purpose of exploring and colonizing the new world. He 
sailed with two ships of sixty tons burthen, and each a crew of 
sixty men. He visited New Foundland, surveyed the coast, and 
returned. The favorable report he was enabled to make, increased 
the confidence of his patron, and in May, 1535, he was enabled to 
set sail again with a squadron of three ships, well furnished. " A 
solemn and gorgeous pageant," a confessional and sacrament, and 
the benediction of a bishop attended his departure. In this voyage 
he passed to the west of New Foundland and entering the Gulf of 
St. Lawrence, gave it its name. In September, he ascended the 
river as far as the Island of Orleans. Here he met with the 

Note. — In ascribing^ the discovery of the Hudson river to the navigfator whose name- 
it bears, it is assumed that the coasting and entering of rivers, of Verrazana did not 
embrace it. It is generally admitted, however, that he came to anchor at Sandy Hook 
and that the bay within it, is the "pleasant lake," lie alludes to 



78 HISTORY OF THE 

natives of the country. Although they considered the French 
intruders, and wished to prevent their further advances, they never- 
theless treated them with kindness and hospitality. To direct 
them from their purpose of advancing, they first gave them 
bountiful presents of corn and fish, and to discourage them they 
resorted to jugglery, in which they declared they had drawn 
maledictions from the Great Spirit, against them. They repre- 
sented that there was so much ice and snow in the country above, 
that certain death awaited them if they advanced. Undismayed 
by the arts and devices of the natives, tlie intrepid mariner contin- 
ued to ascend the river, and arrived at a principal Indian village 
called Hochelaga, the present site of Montreal. That region he 
found occupied by a branch of the Wyandot, or Huron tribe of 
Indians, who were there by recent conquest. " Having climbed 
the hill at the base of which lay the village, he beheld spread 
around him a gorgeous scene of woods and waters, promising 
glorious visions of future opulence and national strength. The 
hill he called Mount Royal, and this name was afterwards extended 
to the Island of Montreal. At that period, more than three 
centuries ago, the village of Hochelaga was surrounded by large 
fields of corn and stately forests. The hill called Montreal, was 
fertile and highly cultivated." The form of the village was round 
and encompassed with timber, with three courses of ramparts, 
framed like a sharp spire, but laid across above. The middlemost 
of them was made and built as a direct line, but pei'pendicular. 
These ramparts w^ere framed and fashioned with pieces of timber 
laid along the ground, very well and cunningly joined together 
after this fashion: — The enclosure was in height about two rods. 
It had but one gate which was shut with piles, stakes and bars. 
Over it, and also in many places in the wall there were places to 
run along and ladders to get up, full of stones for its defence. In 
the town there were about fifty houses, about fifty paces long and 
twelve or fifteen broad, built of wood, covered only with the bark 
of the wood as broad as any board, very finely and cunningly 
joined together. Within their houses there were many rooms, 
lodgings and chambers. In the midst of these, there was a great 
court, in the middle whereof they made their fire. They lived in 
common together. Then did the husbands, wives and children, 
each one retire themselves to their chambers. They also had on 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 79 

the tops of their houses, garrets, where they kept their corn to 
make their bread, which they called caraconny.^'* 

These Indians gave Cartier a glimpse of the vast region that 
lay at the west of him and for the first time perhaps directed 
French enterprise to a region where it was destined to occupy 
so wide a space. They told him there were three great lakes 
and a sea of fresh water f of which no man had found the end; 
that a river :j: ran south-west, upon which there was a "month's 
sailing to go down to a certain land where there was no ice nor 
snow, where the inhabitants continually warred against each other," 
and where "there was a great abundance of oranges, lemons, nuts 
and apples " ; that the people || there were clad as the French, lived 
in towns, were very honest, and had great stores of gold and 
copper. 

By the authority of his king, and in the name of his country, 
Cartier erected a cross and shield, emblazoned with the arms of 
France, and called the country New France. 

Cartier' s report on his return from this voyage, was made with 
candor. "This country which he had visited abounded with no 
gold or precious stones and its shores were alledged to be bleak 
and stormy." The project of colonization was not renewed until 
six years after. 

In 1540, Francis de la Roque, Seigneur de Roberval, was 
granted a charter by Francis I, which invested him with all the 
powers of his sovereign, over the newly discovered and claimed 
colony of New France. Under his immediate auspices a squadron 
of five ships was fitted out, with Cartier commissioned by the 
king as chief Pilot of the expedition. He was directed to take 
with him persons of every trade and art, and to dwell in the newly 
discovered territory. The expedition had an untoward commence- 
ment and ultimately resulted in but a feeble advance toward per- 
manent settlement. As good colonists could not be obtained to go 
to the inhospitable and bleak northern regions, the prisons and work 
houses of France were resorted to to supply the demand. In 
addition to this, a feeling of rivalry and jealousy sprang up between 

* The author finds this ancient account of Hochelaga, in Lanman's Historj' of 
Michigan. 

tErie, Huron, Michigan. The "sea," lake Superior. 

tThe Mississippi. 

II Florida and the Spanish colonies. 



80 HISTORY OF THE 

RoBERVAL and Cartier. They neither embarked in company, nor 
acted in concert. Cartier ascended the St. Lawrence and built a 
fort at Quebec; but no considerable advances in geographical 
knowledge would seem to have been made. In June, 1542 he 
returned to France. On the way back he met Roberval on the 
banks of New Foundl&.nd, with more provisions and arms, and 
returning with him to the fort, he assumed the command, while 
Roberval ascended the St. Lawrence. Cartier not entering 
with cordiality into the views or measures of Roberval, the 
expedition after remaining about a year returned to France. 

In the career of French discovery in New France there occurs 
here an hiatus or suspension of over fifty years. The causes of 
this suspension may be found in that portion of the history of 
France which embraces that period; they were domestic troubles, 
civil war, &c., which divested the nation from all projects of 
discovery and colonization. 

It was under the reign of Elizabeth, that England made the first 
attempt at colonization in America. In 1584 Sir Walter Raleigh, 
under the patronage of the Queen, fitted out two vessels, to ''visit 
the districts which he intended to occupy, and to examine the 
accommodations of the coasts, the productions of the soil, and the 
condition of the inhabitants." These ships approached the North 
American Continent by the Gulf of Florida, and anchored in 
Roanoke Bay, off the coast of North Carolina. This was followed 
the year after by seven more ships, which left 108 men at the 
Roanoke Colony, The immediate prospect of forming a colony 
was finally unsuccessful. A fleet under Sir Admiral Drake, that 
was returning home after a successful expedition against the 
Spaniards in the West Indies, touched at Roanoke on its home- 
ward passage, and took the colonists home to England. 

There were several other attempts to colonize by Raleigh, and 
under his auspices, but were failures ; amounting only to the 
landing of several ship loads of emigrants, illy provided for sub- 
sistance or defence ; to become a prey to the natives, or perish for 
food. At the period of Queen Elizabeth's death, not an English- 
man was settled in America. 

In 1603, Bartholomew Gosnold, planned an expedition in a 
small vessel with only thirty men — discovered a much nearer route 
than had hitherto been pursued — visited the coast of Massachusetts 
and returned with a rich freight of peltry. His favorable accoun 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 81 

led a few merchants of Bristol to send out two vessels, to examine 
the country Gosnold had visited. They returned, confirming his 
statements. Another expedition followed, which, returning, reported 
so many *' additional particulars commendatory of the region, that 
all doubt and hesitation vanished from the minds of the projectors of 
American Colonization; and an association sufficiently numerous 
wealthy and powerful to undertake this enterprise, being speedily 
formed, a petition was presented to the King for his sanction of the 
plan, and the interposition of his authority towards its execution." 

In April 1606, King James issued letters patent to Sir Thomas 
Gates, George Somers, Richard Hakluyt, and their associates 
granting to them those territories in America, lying on the sea 
coast between the thirty-fourth and forty-fifth degrees of north 
latitude, together with all the Islands situated within one hundred 
miles of their shores. 

The patentees were divided into two companies. The territory 
appropriated to the first, or Southern Colony, was called Virginia. 
That appropriated to the Northern Colony, was called New Eng- 
land. They were termed the London and Plymouth companies. 

Three vessels soon sailed under the auspices of the London 
Company, having on board one hundred and five men destined to 
remain in America; among the adventurers, were George Percy, 
a brother of the Duke of Northumberland, Gosnold, the enter- 
prising navigator, and Capt. John Smith. The squadron arrived 
in the Chesapeake Bay, April 1607. These colonists founded the 
settlement at Jamestown, and theirs was the first successful scheme 
of English colonization in America. In 1608, this colony first tilled 
the soil of what now constitutes the United States, unless the 
Spaniards had previously planted in Florida. 

In 1607 the Plymouth company made an abortive attempt to 
form a colony in northern Virginia. The expedition returned to 
England and damped the spirit of emigration by the representations 
it made of the soil and climate they had visited. Six years after 
they fitted out two vessels, and placed one of them under the com- 
mand of Capt. Smith, who had become identified with the colony at 
Jamestown previously. This expedition explored with care and 
diligence, the whole coast from Cape Cod to Penobscot. Capt. 
Smith went into the interior of the country, made a map of the 
coast, which on his return he presented to the King, accompanied 
with a highly favorable account of the country. Capt. Hunt, who 
6 



82 HISTORY OF THE 

commanded one of the vessels, instead of returning with Smith, 
enticed a number of Indians on board his vessel, and touching at 
Malaga on his homevv^ard voyage, sold them as slaves; thus upon 
the threshold of 'New England colonization, provoking the natives 
to abandon their pacific policy, and look upon the new comers as 
enemies. The very next vessel that visited the coast of New 
England, brought news of their vindictive hostility. 

It was reserved for the pilgrim fathers, who, to escape persecu- 
tion in England, had fled to Leyden, to commence the colonization 
of New England. Obtaining from King James a tacit acquiescence 
and from the Plymouth Company a grant of a portion of their 
territory, one hundred and twenty of their number embarked at 
Delft Haven, reaching the coast of America, after a long and 
dangerous voyage, on the 9th of November, 1620, and the coast 
of Massachusetts, the spot they afterwards called New Plymouth, 
on the 11th of December. 

On the 30th day of September, 1609, two hundred and thirty- 
nine years ago, Henry Hudson an Englishman, but then in the 
employ of the Dutch East India Company, entered the southern 
waters of New York, and the next day moored his ship within 
Sandy Hook. He ascended the river that now bears his name, as 
far up as Albany, some exploring parties of his expedition having 
gone as far as Troy. He was from the day he passed Sandy 
Hook, until the fourth of October, engaged in an examination of 
the bay of New York, the banks of the river, &c., trafficking with 
the natives, gratifying his own and their curiosity, by receiving 
them on board his vessel, and otherwise cultivating their acquain- 
tance and friendship. 

There have been preserved minute details of this first European 
visit to our State. It forms a chapter in our history of great 
interest, not only from the fact that it informs us of the discovery 
of our now Empire State — of the first European advent upon the 
waters of the Hudson, to the site of our great northern commercial 
emporium, but from its giving us by far the best and most satisfac- 
tory accounts of the natives, as they were found in their primitive 
condition. Hudson testifies, as precedent navigators had done to 
their general friendly reception of the stranger European. In his 
four weeks' interview with the natives, nothing occured to mar its 
pacific character, until one of their number had been wantonly 
killed by one of his men. The Indian, attracted by curiosity, and 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 83 

having perhaps but imperfect ideas of the rights of property, stole 
into the cabin window, and pilfered a pillow, and some wearing 
apparel. The men discovering his retreat with the articles shot at 
and killed him. In an attempt to recover the articles, another 
native was killed. Previous to this, there had been what the 
natives construed into an attempt to carry off two of their number. 
Following after these events, was a concerted attempt on the part 
of the natives to get possession of the vessel. At the head of 
Manhattan Island in the inlet of Harlem river, they had collected 
a large force. The vessel going down the river approached the 
shore near the place of ambush. Hudson discovering them, and 
their hostile intentions, lay off, the Indians discharging at the vessel 
a volley of arrows, which was returned by the discharge of muskets. 
This skirmishing continued as the vessel moved farther down, the 
Indians assaulting with their arrows, the Europeans retaliating with 
their muskets, and occasionally by the discharge of a cannon. 
Nine of the Indians were killed, none of the Europeans. How 
astounding to these simple warriors, armed only with their bows 
and arrows, must have been this their first knowledge of the use of 
gun-powder, and its terrible agency as an auxiliary in war! And 
that they were not dismayed, did not flee at the first explosion of a 
volley of muskets, is a matter of especial wonder. 

Thus a relation, an acquaintance, that was commenced, and for 
some time was continued in amity, had a hostile termination. 
Hudson sailed down the river and put to sea. 

This first European advent to our state, was marked by another 
event, more important in the annals of the aborigines, than any that 
has occured during their acquaintance with our race. It was the 
inflicting upon them a curse, more terrible in its consequenses than 
all else combined, of the evils that have attended their relations 
with us ; a curse equal in magnitude, in proportion to the aggregate 
numbers to be effected by it, to that which England has visited upon 
the Chinese by force of arms ; ( and there is some coincidence in the 
two events, for in both cases there was the predisposition, the 
physical tendency, to destructive excess): — While Hudson's vessel 
lay in the river, ( near Albany, as inferred from his account, ) 
"great multitudes flocked on board to survey the wonder." In 
order to discover whether "any of the chiefe men of the country 
had any treacherie in them, our master and mate took them into the 
rabin and gave them so much wine and aqxia vitcB that they were 



84 HISTORY OF THE 

all merrie ; and one of them had his wife with him, which sate sc 
modestly as any of our counterey womene, would doe in a strange 
plaice." One of them became intoxicated, staggered and fell, at 
which the natives were astonished. It "was strange to them, for 
they could not tell how to take it." They all hurried ashore in 
their canoes. The intoxicated Indian remaining and sleeping on 
board all night, the next day, others ventured on board and finding 
him recovered, and well, they were highly gratified. He was a 
chief. In the afternoon they repeated their visits, brought tobacco 
"and beads, and gave them to our master, and made an oration 
showing him all the country round about." They took on board a 
platter of venison, dressed in their own style, and "caused him to 
eate with them: — then they made him reverence, and departed all," 
except the old chief, who having got a taste of the fatal beverage 
chose to remain longer on board. Thus were the aborigines first 
made acquainted with what they afterwards termed ^^fire water;'''' 
and aptly enough for it has helped to consume them. The Indiaas 
who met Hudson at Albany were of the Mohawk nation. 

The discovery of Hudson was followed up by several voyages 
from Holland, with the principal object of traffic on the river, and 
amonsr the natives he had discovered. The Dutch built two small 
fortified trading posts, the one on Castle, and the other on Manhat- 
tan Island. The English attempted a colony upon the river, but 
were unsuccessful. It was not until 1623 that effectual colonization 
commenced. In that year, and soon after, vessels were fitted out 
by the Dutch company, emigrants embarked in them, forts were 
built, settlements founded. The colony was called New Nether- 
land. The first governor came out in 1623. 

In 1603, a company of merchants was formed at Rouen for the 
purpose of colonization. They were invested with authority to 
explore the country, and establish colonics along the St. Lawrence. 
Samuel Champlain, an able mariner, a partner in the company, 



Note. — The strong appetite of Indians for intoxicating drinks, has heen observed 
from our earliest intercourse with them. The first navigators, who reached them, 
bringing "strong water," the traders who have found them ignorant of the existence of 
it, and fatally enticed them to its taste, have uniformly borne testimony that with few 
exceptions, when they have been once under the influence of it, their appetites are 
craving for further indulgence. The author has been informed by one who has spent 
most of his life among the fur traders on the head waters of the Mississippi, that he has 
known an Indian runner to make a journey of two hundred miles and back through 
deep snow, to obtain a gallon of whiskey, to finish a carousal, after having exhausted 
the supply of a trader. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. «5 

directed the expedition. In this expedition he selected Quebec as 
the site of a fort. The protection of the fur trade was its princi- 
pal object, though it led to a permanent establishment. A few 
settlers were left to build huts and clear land. It was during this 
expedition, as inferred by Mr. Lanman, the intelligent historian of 
Michigan, that the foundation was laid for the long scries of 
troubles that grew up between the French and the Iroquois. 
Cartier, in a previous ascension of the St. Lawrence, against the 
wishes of the Hurons and Algonquins, had, with motives of curios- 
ity, or to gratify it at home, taken to England three of their chiefs 
against their will. To win their favor, Champlain became their 
ally against the Iroquois. The secret of his policy, as inferred by 
Charlevoix, was to humble the Iroquois, in order to "unite all the 
nations of Canada in an alliance with the French." He did not 
foresee that the former, who for a long time had, single handed, 
kept in awe the Indians, three hundred miles around them, would 
be aided by Europeans in another quarter, jealous of the power of 
the French, It was not his fault, therefore, that circumstances he 
could not have anticipated, subsequently concurred to frustrate his 
plan. 

As this expedition constitutes a distinct and important era in the 
history of the Aborigines of America, and their mode of warfare 
— the introduction of fire-arms, — the author extracts a concise 
account of it from the work of Messrs, Yates and Moulton: — 

"Having yielded his consent to join the expedition, he, (Cham- 
plain) embarked with his new allies at Quebec, and sailed into the 
Iroquois river (now Sorrel,) until the rapids near Chambly pre- 
vented his vessel from proceeding. His allies had not apprised him 
of this impediment: on the contrary, they had studiously concealed 
it as well as other obstacles. His vessel returned; but he, and two 
Frenchmen who would not desert him, determined to proceed, not- 
withstanding the difficulties of the navigation, and the duplicity of 
their allies in concealing those difficulties. They transported their 
canoes beyond the rapids, and encamped for the night. As was 
customary, they sent a spy to range in the vicinity, who in a short 
time returned, and informed them that he saw no enemy. Without 
placing any guard, they prepared for repose. Champlain, sur- 
prised to find them so stupidly incautious and confident of their 
safety, endeavored to prevail with them to keep watch. All the 
reply they made was, that people who were fatigued all day, had 
need of sleep at night. Afterwards, when they thought that they 
were approaching nearer towards the enemy, they were induced 



86 HISTORY OF THE 

to be more guarded, to travel at night only, and keep no fires in 
the day time, Champlain was charmed with the variegated 
and beautiful aspect of the country. The islands were filled with 
deer and other animals, which supplied the army with abundance 
of game, and the river and lake afforded abundance of fish. In 
the progress of their route he derived much knowledge of the 
Indian character as it was displayed in this warHke excursion. He 
was particularly amused to perceive the blind confidence which the 
Indians paid to their sooth-sayer or sorcerer, who in the time of 
one of their encampments, went through with his terrific cere- 
mony. For several days they inquired of Champlain if he had 
not seen the Iroquois in a dream. His answer being that he had 
not, caused great disquietude among them. At last, to relieve 
liiem from their embarrassments, or get rid of their importunity, 
he told them he had, in a dream, seen the Iroquois drowning in a 
lake, but he did not rely altogether upon the dream. The allies 
judged differently, for they now no longer doubted a victory. Hav- 
ing entered upon the great lake, which now bears the name of 
Champlain, in honor of its discoverer, he and his allies traversed 
it until they approached towards the junction of the outlet of Lake 
St. Sacrament,* with Lake Champlain, at or near Ticonteroga. 
The design of the allies was to pass the rapids bet"ween those two 
lakes, to make an eruption into the mountainous regions and vallies 
of the Iroquois beyond the small lake, and by surprise to strike 
them at one of their small villages. The latter saved them the 
necessity of journeying so far, for they suddenly made their 
appearance at 10 o'clock at night, and by mere accident, met the 
former on the great lake. The surprise of both parties was 
equaled only by their joy, which was expressed in shouts, and as it 
was not their practice to fight upon the water unless when they 
were too far from land to retreat, they mutually hurried to the 
shore. 

*' Here, then, in the vicinity of Ticonderoga (a spot afterwards 
celebrated in the achievements of the French and Revolutionary 
Wars,) the two parties pitched for battle. The allies immediately 
labored to entrench themselves behind fallen trees, and soon sent a 
ir.essenger to the Iroquois to learn whether they would fight 
immediately. The latter replied that the night was too dark: they 
could not see themselves, and the former must await the approach 
of day. The allies consented, and after taking the necessary 
precautions, slept. At break of day, Champlain placed his two 
Frenchmen, and some savages in the wood, to attack the enemy 
in flank. These consisted of two hundred choice and resolute 
men, who considered victory as easy and certain over the Algon- 
quins and Hurons, whom the former did not expect, would have 



Lake George. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 87 

dared to take the field. The allies were equal to them in number, 
but displayed a part only of their warriors. They, as well as the 
enemy were armed with bows and arrows only, but they founded 
their hopes of conquest upon the fire-arms of the French; and 
they pointed out to Champlain, and advised him to fire upon the 
three chiefs, who wei'c distinguished by feathers or tails of birds 
larger than those of their followers. The allies first made a 
sortie from their entrenchment, and ran two hundred feet in front 
of the enemy, then stopped, divided into two bands to the right 
and left, leaving the center position for Champlain, who advanced 
and placed liimself at their head. His sudden appearance and 
arms, were new to the Iroquois, whose astonishment became 
extreme. But what was their dismay when, after the first report 
of his arquebuse from the spot where he had posted four men, the 
Iroquois saw two of their chiefs fall dead, and the third dangerously 
wounded ! The allies now shouted for joy and discharged a few 
ineffective arrows. Champlain recharged, and the other French- 
men successfully fought the Iroquois, who were soon seen in 
disorder and flight. They were pursued warmly, many were 
killed, and some taken prisoners. The fugitives, in their precipi- 
tance, abandoned their maize. This was a seasonable relief for 
the victors, for they had been reduced to great need. They fed, 
and passed two hours on the field of battle in dancing and singing. 
Not one had been killed, although several were wounded. They 
prepared to return homeward, for among these people the van- 
quishers always retreat as well as the vanquished, and often 
inasmuch disorder and precipitation as if they were pursued by a 
victorious enemy. In their way back, they tortured one of their 
prisoners, whose miseries Champlain humanely ended." 

This was the first pitched battle fought upon our continent, and 
thus did the Iroquois learn the use of an auxiliary in war, which 
enabled them to extend in less than a century afterwards, their 
territorial dominion two thousand miles, waste the lives of their 
own race, and afterwards, as allies of England, to become a 
scourge of the border settlements of New York, in the war of 
the Revolution. Nor did the instructors of these amateurs in a 
new warfare, escape the consequences. They found them apt 
scholars; and in their after contests with them learned to dread 
the stealthy and deadly aim, in their hands, of the arms furnished 
them by the Dutch and English. 

At nearly the same period, Hudson had given them the taste of 
intoxicating liquors, at Albany. Thus were they put in possession 
of two agents that were finally to work their own ruin and decline. 
Better for them, we are apt to say, if civilization had never reached 



^8 HISTORY OF THE 

them in these their forest homes. But then comes upon us the 
reflection that theirs, if a sylvan abode, was not one of peace and 
iiAiocence. Long before — how long their own traditions cannot 
inform us, — they were warring upon their own race. They too 
had invented weapons of war, and oppressed and trampled upon 
the weak; were even wanton in their wanderings upon the war 
path for victims. Who shall question the dispensations of Provi- 
dence, or say that theirs was not the destiny he had decreed 1. 
Who shall say, that if European feet had never trod their soil, 
that an even worse calamity was not in store for them? That 
they but awaited the ebb tide of destiny? That retribution was 
not already coming upon them; — its ministering spirits, the leagued 
and exasperated of their own race, they had scourged in long 
years of triumph and supremacy? 

With a far better knowledge of the country of New France, 
than had been before obtained, Champlain returned home, and 
after delays and embarrassments, incident to some changes in the 
administration of the government of France, in 1615 embarked 
once more for the New World. There came out with him, monks 
of the order of St. Francis. " Again he invades the territory of 
the Iroquois in New York. Wounded and repulsed, and destitute 
of guides, he spends the first winter after his return to America in 
the country of the Hurons; and a night errant among the forests, 
carries his language, religion and influence, even to the hamlets of 
the Algonquins on Lake Nipissing."* 

Cartier is regarded as the pioneer upon the St. Lawrence, and 
Champlain as the founder of a colony upon its banks. " For 
twenty years succeeding the commencement of the 17th century, 
he was zealously employed in planting and rearing that infant 
colony, which was destined to extend its branches to these shores 
and finally, to contest with its great rival, the sovereignty of North 
America. Champlain discovered in his eventful life, traits of 
heroism, self-devotion and perseverance, which, under more 
favorable circumstances, would have placed him in the ranks of 
those, whose deeds are the land marks of history."! 

Events that followed the discovery of this continent, have been 
thus briefly alluded to, with no intention to enlarge upon them, or 

* Bancroft. 

t Geu. Cass' Lectures before Historical Society of Michigan. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 89 

to travel over ground v^rith which most readers will be familiar; but 
principally for the purpose of such a chronological introduction as 
will aid in connecting our own local history with the history of 
our entire country. 

The progress of colonization was slow. In this day of progress, 
we may well wonder why such a country as this, did not at once 
invite a flood of adventurers from Europe. But a careful review 
of the condition of the old world at that period; the jealousies and 
counteracting rivalries that existed between the nations that had 
directed their attention to this quarter: England, France Germany 
and Spain; their internal dissensions, and the fluctuations in their 
administrations and their commercial policy; affbrd us chiefly the 
explanation. And to all these hindrances may be added, the 
absence of that spirit of determined and persevering national 
adventure, which at a later period stimulated to a more earnest 
and effectual searching out and occupying new fields of enterprise. 
In following up the slow course of events as they occurred; in 
noting the tardiness especially, with which England and France 
made their advances to this continent, even after they had through 
the reports of their explorers, reUable accounts of the land of 
promise, leads us to reflect, how it would be now, with our own 
people, if they could even catch a glimpse of an unoccupied field 
such as this was. There would be no waiting for kingly or 
government charters; no asking of colonial monopolies. Individual 
efforts, indomitable private enterprise, would take the place of all 
this: there would go out from our sea-ports in rapid succession, 
colonies of hardy adventurers, who arriving at their destinations, 
and finding but a moiety of the inducements, surrounded by greater 
obstacles, than was presented to European adventurers here — 
would persevere; and in the time that in the precedent case it took 
to deliberate at home, and determine upon a scheme of colonization, 
— colonies would be founded, territorial governments would be 
formed; and we should hear of annexation, and possibly of 
admission. 

" Westward the star of Empire " took " its way," but dimly and 
slowly ; giving but a feeble and flickering light to attract the 
nations of the earth, while its orbit was circumscribed under Euro- 
pean auspices and dominion. It was not 'till it had the genial 
•influences of freedom and free institutions; until it had shaken off" 
the incubus of foreign control; that it began to shine with lustre, 



90 HISTORY OF THE 

make its rapid transit towards the zenith, and realize the prophetic 
inspiration of Bishop Berkley. 

Dating from the discovery of this continent in 1492, it was five 
years before Cabot discovered New Foundland, St. Johns, and the 
coast of Virginia; forty-two years before Cartier discovered and 
sailed up the St. Lawrence; one hundred and thirty-five years 
before Champlain had effectually established French settlements 
and dominion. Twenty years before Ponce de Leon discovered 
Florida and claimed it for Spain; seventy-three years before St. 
Augustine was founded.* Seventy-three years before the first 
expedition of Sir Walter Raleigh entered the bay of the Chesa- 
peake; one hundred and fifteen years before any permanent colony 
was established in Virginia. One hundred and twenty-nine years 
before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. One hundred and fifteen 
before Hudson sailed up the river that bears his name; and one 
hundred thirty- one years before colonization was effectually pro- 
gressing upon its banks. 

The whole series of primitive discoveries upon this continent 
were accidental. The discoverers were in pursuit of a shorter 
route to the Indies, and blundered upon this fair region that lay in 
their way. After the discoveries, gold, other minerals, precious 
stones, fountains of health, predominated with the explorers, until 
failing in their expectations, traffic with the natives for furs and 
peltries, engrossed the attention of the few and far between voya- 
gers to the New World. The great elements of wealth here, as 
time has demonstrated, lay dormant and undisturbed in the soil. 
The Acadia of France, the Eldorado of Spain, the region where 
the Englishman was to shovel wealth into his coffers, and the slow 
Dutchman was to quicken his pace in the pursuit of fortune ; came 
far short of their expectations; and their squadrons but came and 
wandered lazily around the coasts, or ventured but short expedi- 
tions up our noble rivers. The wealth was here — the elements of 
human enjoyment, content and happiness, but they widely mistook 
in what it consisted. It remained for patient, persevering indus- 
try and enterprise, unshackled by tyranny; for those who fled 
to these shores from persecution and wrong; for young and vigo- 
rous scions of a decayed and decaying parent stock; to more than 
realize the hopes and expectations of the early European dreamers. 

* St, Augustine is by forty years, the oldest town in the United States. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 



9i 



In 1609 the English colony at Jamestown had just begun to turn 
its attention to agriculture: — "yet so little land had been cultivated 
— not more than thirty or forty acres in all — that it was still 
necessary for EngHshmen to solicit food from the indolent Indians; 
and Europeans, to preserve themselves from starving, -were 
billeted among the sons of the forest.''* In 1624, De Laet, a 
director of the Dutch West India Company, under whose auspices 
settlement was slowly progressing upon the Hudson, attracted the 
attention of his countrymen by a published description of the 
New World. In describing New Netherland, he said: — "It is a 
line and delightful land, full of fine trees and vines — wine might be 
made there, and the grape cultivated. Nothing is wanted but 
cattle, and they might be easily transported. The industry of our 
people might make this a pleasant and fruitful land. The forests 
contain excellent ship timber, and several yachts and small vessels 
have been built there." But it was not until several years after 
this first attempt to turn the attention of the Dutch from traffic to 
agriculture, that there was any considerable degree of success. 

The Dutch trade was with the natives, upon Long Island, the 
banks of the Hudson, and the eastern nations of the Iroquois. 
By a I'eport made to the West India Company at Amsterdam, the 
following exhibit was made of exports and imports for the first 
nine years after the regular established commerce of the colony: — 



EXPORTS. 



T F.AR. 

1624. 
1625. 
1626. 
1627 
1628. 
1629. 
1630. 
1631. 
1632. 



GUILDERS. 

4,000 beavers, 700 otters, 27,125 
35,825 
45,050 
12,730 
61,075 
62,185 
68,012 



5,295 
7,258 
7,520 
6,951 
5,913 
6,041 



1.3,513 



463 

857 

320 

734 

681 

1085 

no exports. 

1661 



143,125 



454,127 
or, $189,219,58 



IMPORTS. 

YEAR. GUILDERS. 

1624. In two ships, goods, wares, 25,569 

1625. Several ships, " 8,772 

1626. Two ships, " 20,384 

1627. Four ships, " 56,170 

1628. No imports, 

1629. Three ships, " 55,778 

1630. Two ships, " 54,499 

1631. One ship, " 17,.355 

1632. One ship, " 31,320 



272,847 
or, $113,686,25 



" The advancement of colonization in New England, [1628] was 
far more rapid than it had been in New Netherland; but the causes 
that respectively operated to produce the diversity, were altogether 
different in their character and tendency. In the one case, religion 
became the powerful motive, and it introduced as auxiliaries, talent, 
enterprise and skill. In the other, monopoly and aristocracy, with 



Bancroft 



92 HISTORY OF THE 

their cold and calculating selfishness, were in coUision with the 
freedom of trade and the genius of liberty, and the consequences 
were withering to the blossoms of promise which nature had so 
bountifully dicplayed in New Netherlands." * 

Conflicting claims to territory upon this continent, began to 
arise in the earliest periods of colonization. The basis, or general 
principles upon which claims were to be founded, was pretty well 
defined by the common consent of the nations of Europe, that were 
interested; but disputes and collisions arose from different construc- 
tions of these general principles; and upon questions of fact, 
involving priority of discovery, occupation, &c. 

" Discovery gave title to the government, by whose subjects, or 
by whose authority it was made, against all other European 
governments, which title might be consummated by possession. 
Hence, although a vacant country belonged to those who first 
discovered it, and who acknowledge no connexion, and owe no 
allegiance to any government, yet if the country be discovered and 
possessed by the emigrants of an existing acknowledged govern- 
ment, the possession is deemed taken for the nation, and title must 
be derived from the sovereign organ, in whom the power to dispute 
of vacant territories is vested by law. 

" Resulting from the above principle as qualified, was that of the 
sole right of the discoverer to acquire the soil from the natives, 
and establish settlements either by purchase or conquest. Hence, 
also the exclusive right cannot exist in governments, and at the 
same time in private individuals; and hence also, the natives were 
recognized as rightful occupants, but their power to dispose of the 
soil at their own will, to whom they pleased, was denied by the 
original fundamental principle, that discovery gave exclusive title 
to those who made it. 

"The ultimate dominion was asserted, and as a consequence, a 
power to grant the soil while yet in possession of the natives. — 
Hence, such dominion was incompatible with an absolute and 
complete title in the Indians. Consequently, from the foregoing 
principle, and its corollaries, the Indians had no right to sell to any 
other than the government of the first discoverer, nor to private 

Note. — The author having found the above concise and comprehensive abstract of 
the basis of title to all the lands in the United States, in the work of Yates and Moulton 
already quoted, he transfers it to his pages. It not only contains the principles that 
governed the nations of Europe, in their original colonization of our country, but sets 
forth the main principle, and origin of pre-emption, as afterwards recognized by our 
general government and the states. A careful historical deduction of the title to our 
own region takes us back for a starting point, to the basis of title, as fixed at the 
primitive period of discovery and colonization. 

* Yates and Moulton. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 93 

citizens without tiie sanction of their government. Hence the 
Indians were to be considered as mere occupants, to be protected 
indeed while in peace, in the possession of their lands, but with an 
incapacity of transfering the absolute title to others." 

At a point we have now gained, — the commencement of perma- 
nent colonization upon this continent, — the author is admonished, 
in view of the local character of the work he has in hand, that he 
must come nearer home. Civilization is already approaching the 
region of Western New York. Under Champlain, the founder 
of settlement upon the St. Lawrence, there have come out of 
France scores of adventurers; the most prominent, and far most 
numerous of whom, are the fur traders, the devotees of traffic and 
gain; and the missionaries, with the higher purposes of carrying 
the emblems and the tidings of salvation to the forest homes of our 
predecessors. The two classes, jointly, travelling together side by 
side, are destined to extend French dominion to the rivers and 
lakes of Canada west; to the head waters of lake Ontario; along 
the banks of the Niagara river, to the shores of lakes Erie, St. 
Clair, Huron, Michigan, and Superior; over the fertile plains, prai- 
ries and wood-lands of Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiania, lUinois, 
Missouri, Iowa, down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, and 
over its waters to Texas. 

The missionary was seldom behind, often preceded the trader. 
Those of the order of St. Francis — called Franciscans, — preceded 
the Jesuits in the New World. They came out with Champlain 
in 1615. The more formidable order, that was destined wholly to 
supplant them and occupy exclusively the new field of missionary 
enterprise, first arrived upon the banks of the St. Lawrence in 
1625. Previous to this, the Franciscans, Le Caron, Viel and 
Sagard, had been instructing the tribes along the western banks 
of the Niagara. They were unquestionably, the first Europeans 
who set foot in Western New York. Their advent here was 
nearly co-temporary with the landing of the Pilgrims in New 
England. Plymouth Rock had but just re-echoed the thanksgiving 
of the founders of English colonization in our northern states, — 
the simpler and less ostentatious forms of the religious faith of the 
Puritans, had but just found an asylum upon our northern Atlantic 
coast; when the ceremonies of the Catholic church were exciting 
the wonder of the dwellers in the forests of our own region. 

For nearly one hundred and fifty years, from the period of 



94 HISTORY OF THE 

effectual colonization upon the St. Lawrence, until the English 
conquests in 1759; the Jesuits — the disciples of Loyola — were 
almost exclusively in possession of the whole missionary ground of 
New France. With the exception of but brief precedent advents 
of the Franciscans, the Jesuits with the traders that accompanied 
them, were the Pioneers of civilization in Western New York. 
The imposing ceremonies of the ritual of the Catholic Church, awed 
the simple minded sons of the forest as they came to gaze upon 
the works of the primitive ship builders upon the Niagara; — 
JoNCAiRE, the adopted Seneca, the successful courtier at the 
councils of the Iroquois, had hardly "planted himself amid a group 
of cabins at Lewiston," when the cross was planted in their midst. 
When a trading station was secured at Niagara, the Jesuit mis- 
sionary erected his cabin by the side of the trader. And going 
out from these primitive stopping places, they threaded the narrow 
trails that conducted them to the scattered settlements of the 
Senecas west of the Genesee river, and upon its eastern banks. 
The advent and long career of the Jesuits upon this continent, and 
especially in this quarter, forms an interesting feature in our 
general history; a brief sketch of their founder, and his Institute, 
may well occupy a short chapter of our local pioneer annals. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 95 



CHAPTER II. 



THE ORDER OF THE JESUITS. 



The order of the Jesuits as it is usually termed — of the Society 
of Jesus, as they termed themselves — was founded in the early 
part of the sixteenth century. Its founder was Ignatius Loyola, 
a native of Navarre. Born of a noble family, bred to the profession 
of arms, chivalric and danng, when an army of Francis I. invaded 
his country, he was among the gallant defenders of the besieged 
city of Pampeluna. While rallying and exhorting the Spanish 
soldiers to a desperate resistance, he was severely wounded. 
While an invalid, the lives of the Saints fell into his hands, and were 
his constant companions during the progress of a lingering cure. 
Their perusal excited his ardent temperament, and inspired him 
with ambition to signalize himself as a champion of the religious 
faith in which he had been educated. Retiring to a convent, he 
meditated and made vows to become the "Knight of the Virgin 
Mary," and to be "renowned for mortifications and works after the 
manner of saints." In his seclusion he subjected himself to the 
most rigid disipline of a monk of the strictest order, and after 
several years of solitary penance and journeyings as a men- 
dicant, he matured a gigantic scheme of missionary enterprise, 
embracing the world in its designs; and which, for good and evil, 
is signalized as one of the most extraordinary advents that mark 
the pages of history. 

When Luther publicly sustained the thesis of his apostacy in 
the Diet of Worms, and composed his book against monastic vows, 
in the solitude of Alstadt, Loyola was consecrating himself to his 
work, in the chapel of Monte Serrato, and composing his Spiritual 
Exercises in his retreat at Mauresa. At the time too, that Henry 
the Eighth proclaimed himself spiritual head of the Anglician 



96 HISTORY OF THE 

Church, and ordered, under penalty of death, that the very name of 
Pope should be effaced from every document and from every book, 
Loyola vt^as laying the foundations of an order that professed in 
a most special manner, obedience to the sovereign Pontiff, and zeal 
and activity in enlai'ging the bounds of his dominion. 

The Reformation under the lead of Martin Luther, had well 
nigh broken the svvray, prostrated the power of the Roman 
Church. The advent of Loyola was the first recoil from its 
effects. It was as if in battle, a powerful army had been nearly 
routed, its ranks thinned and broken, its leaders dismayed, appalled 
by the desperate onsets of the assailants — a daring spirit should 
spring from the ranks fitted to the emergency, and by the boldness 
and novelty of his designs, inspire courage to renew the contest. 
While the Pope and his adherents were deliberating — resolving 
but feebly, and often impotently essaying to execute their resolu- 
tions; an intrepid soldier — wounded in a field of carnal warfare — 
clothed himself in spiritual armor, and came forward the devotee 
and champion of a faith that had been successfully assailed by 
innovators, as daring and fearless in their assaults, as he was in his 
well arranged plan of defence. In the warfare of faiths, in which 
he was enlisted, — a contest to sustain the supremacy of his creed, 
to enable it to regain its lost ground, — Loyola was what Napo- 
leon became after him in the political affairs of France. They 
were equally master spirits of the movements in which they were 
engaged. The one astonished the religious world with the new- 
ness and magnificence of his schemes. The other confounded and 
amazed the political world, by a long career of the triumphs of 
the one man-power that he wielded. Did Napoleon call to his 
aid the genius, the talent, the courage of France, and mould 
them to his will; Loyola equally by the attractions of his 
splendid conceptions, guaranteed and realized as great moral 
triumphs, in enlisting the co-operation of those who were fitted 
to his purposes. The wealth that he required to lay the foun- 
dations of his new system of propagandism, flowed into his trea- 
sury; for the possessors of it were mourning over the reverses 
of a religious faith that more than all others, prompts to the 
offerings of worldly possessions; imagined that light was again 
shining through the domes of St. Peters; that error, — grievous 
error, as they deemed it, was to be confounded by the new 
champion that had taken the field. Around his standard flocked 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 97 

the devotees of the -'Church Catholic;" who, surrendering all 
thmgs else, dedicated themselves to his will and his designs; set 
themselves apart to execute his commands, even to the farthest 
ends of the earth. The Church of Rome had been assailed by the 
bold Reformer in the seats and centres of itsj dominions. Its old 
strong fortresses were besieged. Lovola looked to the strength- 
ningand extending of the out-posts; to the more than regaining all 
that had been lost, by sending out to the four quarters of the 
globe and gathering to the fold, new auxiliaries, propagating his 
creed in new and far off fields. 

The tasks to be executed were those of difficulty and danger, but 
there came to his aid those who caught from him their impulses, 
and armed themselves with his stern resolves. Never in any 
missionary enterprise; (and the history of missions from the advent 
of Christianity to the present hour, is replete with signal instances 
of self-sacrifice and martyrdoms; instances of the exercises of a 
moral and physical courage, sterner and higher than the incentive." 
to armed encounters;) — has there been devised a scheme of 
missionary enterprise of equal magnitude; or one that has com- 
manded more devoted service and extraordinary sacrifice, than 
the Institute which somewhat arrogantly assumed to itself the 
name of the " Society of Jesus." 

'• Loyola was aware, that on the day of battle, the most 
experienced officers stand apart, in order to watch with more 
composure, the conflict which they direct. A general of an army 
ought, by means of the orders that he issues, to be every where 
present to his troops. Their movements, their courage, their very 
life, depend on him; he disposes of them in the most absolute 
manner; and the very physical inaction to which, in consequence, 
he subjects himself, augments his intellectual energies. It is he 
that stimulates, that restrains, that combines tlie springs of action, 
that assumes the responsibility of events. Such was the policy of 
Ignatius Loyola. He dispersed his companions over the globe; 
he sent them forth to humiliation or to glory, to preach or to be 
martyred, while he from Rome, as a central point, communicated 
force to all, and, what was still better, regulated their movements. 

" At Rome Ignatius followed his disciples at every step. In an 
age when communication was neither easy nor expeditious, and 
when each political revolution added to the difficulty, he found 
means to correspond with them frequently. He had a perfect 
knowledge of the state of the missions, and was acquainted with 
the joys and sufferings of the missionaries; he sympathised with 



98 HISTORY OF THE 

them, and thus shared their dangers and their struggles; his orders 
were anxiously expected, his councils were scrupulously followed- 
More calm than they, for he was uninfluenced by local passions, he 
decided with greater discernment, he regulated with greater unity 
of design," * 

The plan of Loyola not only embraced an extended missionary 
enterprise, but the founding of institutions of learning. Colleges 
of the Jesuits were founded at Rome, throughout the Papal domin- 
ions, and their branches extended to the foreign missionary grounds. 
They were as so many hives, from which swarmed hosts of those 
who were educated and fitted for the work before them. But the 
education of missionaries was not exclusively their province. 
Engrafted into the system, was the design of its founder to raise 
up a new class of well educated men, in all the departments of Ht- 
erature, the arts and sciences. The colleges were munificently 
endowed; learning had a new impetus given to it. There went 
out from the institutions of the Jesuits, not only the priest, deeply 
schooled in the theology of his order, but poets, philosophers and 
statesmen; those who were well fitted to have influence in the 
political and social affairs of the world, as well as those who would 
promote the predominating object, — the laying of a broader plat- 
form for their church, and extending- its sway. 

The scheme of Loyola, formidable as it was, excited the fears, 
and perhaps jealousies of the then reigning Pontiff". He regarded 
it an innovation, and withheld his approval; but his successor, 
Paul III. clothed the institute with all the attributes necessary to 
make its authority ample, 

" The genius of Champlain, whose comprehensive mind planned 
enduring establishments for French commerce, and a career of 
discovery that should carry the lilies of the Bourbons to the 
extremity of North America, could devise no method of building 
up the dominion of France in Canada, but by an alliance with the 
Hurons, or of confirming that alliance but by the establishment of 
missions."! He had at first encouraged the unambitious Francis- 
cans; but they, being excluded from New France, by the policy of 
the home government, in 1632, the conversion of the New World 
was committed to the ardent Jesuits. They had entered the land 

* History of the Jesuits by M. Cretineu-Joly. Paris, 1844. 
i Bancroft. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 91) 

before, but not under the exclusive privilege of martyrdom. As 
early as 1611 Father Biart had opened the gospel betvvreen the 
Penobscot and Kennebec, and within two years a congregation of 
faithful red men was chanting over the territory lately disputed 
and along the river banks in Maine, their morning and their even- 
ing hymns. The renewal of French emigration to Canada, and 
the committal of this western mission to the Jesuits, were simulta- 
neous. The fifteen who first arrived at Montreal, went principally 
among the Five Nations in the interior of this state. 

In the immediate dominions of the Pope, throughout the cities 
and villages of the greater portion of Europe, the disciples of 
Loyola spread themselves, and earnestly exhorted backsliders to 
return to their ecclesiastical allegiance ; stirred up the luke-warm, 
and checked the hitherto onward march of the Reformers. In 
1543, the Jesuits had missionary stations in Japan and Ethiopa; in 
the Indies and in Peru; in Brazil and Mogul; in the remotest 
Archipelagos, and the bleakest Islands; in the heart of Africa and 
on the banks of the Bosphorus; in China; at Madras and Thibet; 
in Genoa. 

The antagonist movements of the Reformers, the disciples of 
Luther and Calvin, and the new school of propagandists founded 
by Loyola, came in collision upon this continent, in the very 
earliest periods of effectual colonization. Deeply imbued with the 
spirit of the Reformation, were the founders of New England, 
and as deeply, were the founders of New France imbued with the 
spirit, the impelling zeal of Loyola. Avarice, a desire for 
dominion and gain, led 'the way in both quarters, and the better 
impulses of religion and its diflferent faiths, followed. Treading in 
each others footsteps were the traders and missionaries of the 
early New England colonists; the ''gospel was opened" wherever 
the trafficer in furs and pelti'ics had made a stand. On the St. 
Lawrence, along the great chain of Lakes and Rivers, west to the 
valley of the Mississippi, the chaffering of the votaries of Mam- 
mon was often merged wdth the devotional exercises of the 
disciples of Loyola; dividing the attention of the natives between 
the "tables of the money changers," and the emblems, and 
imposing ceremonies of the Romish church. 

When the primitive, Protestant missionaries of New England, 
were wandering in its vallies, faithfully expounding the revealed 



100 HISTORY OF THE 

word to their dusky auditors, gathered in their wigwams, or recli- 
ning in their forest shades, the missionaries of the church of Rome, 
were displaying the emblems of salvation upon the shores of lake 
Ontario, in the settlements of the Iroquois in the interior of our 
State, upon the banks of the Niagara river, and around the shores 
of the Western Lakes. 

They were the subjects of rival nations, and the professors and 
propagators of rival creeds. No wonder perhaps, — and yet it 
was strangely at variance with the mild precepts of Him whose 
mediations they were offering to the inhabitants of the new world 
— they both brought to these shores the rankling, the spirit of 
contention, even to the sword, that was drenching some of the 
fairest portions of Europe with blood. They were contending for 
ecclesiastical, and it was the impulses of country and allegiance, 
that made them strenuous for temporal, political, dominion. Their 
influences were felt in the wars that succeeded between the 
Iroquois and the French, and the English and French. They 
were, more or less, participators in the competition for extended 
empire between those two nations. 

The writers of history, and the readers of it who are in pursuit 
of facts it is its province to gather up, have little to do with the 
merits of rival creeds. The sources of instruction are ample, 
furnished by their respective advocates. In the history of the 
advents of Catholicism and Protestantism in our early colonization 
there is much to admire, and much to condemn. 

Who will not dwell with admiration upon the details of the 
sufferings, martyrdoms, the self abasement of the ardent Catholic 
missionaries that extended civilization, planted the cross here in 
this western wilderness] Sincerity, ardent zeal, signalized their 
advent and progress. Danger was in their wilderness paths, 
hovered around their rude forest chapels. In winter's snows and 
summer's heats, they traversed the wilderness, paddled their frail 
canoes upon our rivers and lakes; deeming health, life, of little 
concern — all of temporal enjoyments, subservient to the paramount 
object: the gathering into the folds of the church of new converts; 
numbering another and another of the aboriginal nations to swell 
the conquests of their faith. Their system was fraught with 
superstition and error; yet who that reverences goodness wherever 
seen and by whatever name it may be called, will refuse to them a 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 101 

meed of praise; fail to recognize thcin as those who won the first 
triumphs for the cross, in this region; when "the wild tribes of the 
west bowed to the emblem of our common faith." *' 

'• The Priest 



Believed the fables that he taught: 

Corrupt their forms, and yet those forms at least 

Preserved a salutary faitli that wrought, 

Maugre the alloy, the saving end it sought. 

Benevolence had gained such empire there. 

That even superstition had been brouglu 

An aspect of humanity to wear. 

And make the weal of man the first and only care." 

SoutJicij's Talcs of Paraguay. 

This is the fair side of the picture. There are blemishes, deep 
and indelible ones, in the long and eventful career of the Institute 
of Loyola. In the system itself there was error, and error and 
wa'ong were mingled with its triumphs, and contributed to its 
decline. Elated with its successes, it sought to rule in that to which 
it professed itself but an auxiliary, until it encountered the jealousy, 
and finally the ban of the great central power at Rome it had 
done so much to strengthen. If not the founder of the Inquisition, 
in some portions of the world it availed itself of that terrible 
engine of ecclesiastical tyranny, crime and oppression. Its favorable 
aspect, is the vast amount of good it has done to the cause of 
learning in the various branches of science; the schools and hospi- 
tals it has founded; its early missions here and in many other 
benighted portions of the world. Beyond these, there is that 
which its advocates — those who are of the faith it upheld — 
cannot in our more enlightened and liberal period, look upon but 
with regret and disapprobation. 

And Protestantism too, as connected with our early colonial his- 
tory, has its pleasant and unpleasant aspects. The humble colony 
that for the sake of faith and conscience, embarked in a vessel illy 
provided, braved the winter's storms upon the ocean, and landed 
upon the bleak and inhospitable shores of New England; encoun- 
tering disease, the tomahawk of the savage, deprivation and death, 
to the fearful thinning of its at best but too feeble ranks; may well 
claim a divided admiration with the highest exercise of religious 
faith and perseverance that marked the wilderness advent of the 

* The Rev. W. J. Kipp. 



102 HISTORY OF THE 

disciples of Loyola. And they were unfriended; had no shield 
of Rome, no coffers of wealth to sustain them. Their king and 
country was against them. Across the ocean, in the land they had 
fled from, to them all was darkness; and around them on the other 
hand, was a wilderness in which the lurking and stealthy foe of 
their race was to be conciliated and appeased. No light shone in 
upon them but that which came from above. In process of time, 
( and that not long extended, ) there was an Eliot and a May- 
hew tliat contested the palm of missionary zeal and daring, 
with a Marquette and a Brebeuf. They furnished examples of 
benignity, simplicity, and heroic patience, such as the world has 
seldom, if ever, witnessed. The one gave the Indians a Bible in 
their own dialect; the other perished in an ocean voyage under- 
taken to bring mo^e laborers into the field of missionary enterprise. 
Protestant missions early spread throughout New England, along 
the shores of the Hudson, up the valley of the Mohawk. They 
numbered in their train a band of faithful and devoted men. In the 
infant colonies upon the Chesapeake Bay, Harriot first displayed 
the Bible to the natives and inculcated its truths; and Robert 
Hunt, who had left behind him his happy English home, came as a 
peace-maker to a turbulent colony, and to act as a mediator 
between the natives and their molestors. Had the Jesuits among 
their neophytes their sainted Seneca maiden, — Catharine Tegah- 
kouita, the "Genevieve of New France " — the Protestants upon 
the Bay of the Chesapeake, numbered among their converts a 
PocHAHONTAs: — "the first sheaf of her nation offered to God — 
the consecration of her charms in early life that mercy might spare 
her the sight of her nation's ruin by an early death." * 

But in after times Protestantism had its tyrannies and persecu- 
tions; its intemperate zeal, bigotry and coercive auxiliaries; its 
banishments, proscriptions, and tribunals of faith. Did the disciples 
of Loyola in other countries avail themselves of the inquisition; 
enforce cruel, world-forsaking monastic vows; the disciples of 
Calvin in New England, erected the gibbet and hunted to the 
scaffold, the non-conformist, the heretic, and the unhappy men and 
women whom their dark superstition accused of witchcraft. 

The wrongs that were perpetrated in the old world by the 
institute of the Jesuits, cannot fairly be made to dim the lustre of 

* From a friend's manuscript. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 103 

the forest advent of the faithful men of the order that pioneered 
the way to civihzation in this region. The wrong doing — the 
intolerance and bigoted persecutions of the early Puritans identified 
with colonization in another quarter, should be hardly remembered 
in view of the part their descendants have finally borne, in rearing 
our proud fabric of religious and poUtical freedom. 

The Institute of Loyola has had a chequered existence; unex- 
ampled success at one period, decline and proscription at another. 
For a long period enjoying the high favor of a succession of Popes, 
then suppressed by one, to be soon restored to favor by another. 
It was founded near the middle of the sixteenth century, and had 
an ajmost uninterrupted career of success, upon a scale of mag- 
nificence but feebly indicated in the preceding pages. In 1759, 
Joseph I, of Portugal, declared the Jesuits traitors and rebels, 
confiscated their goods and banished them. In 1762 the institution 
was declared "incompatible with the institutions of France," and 
the Jesuits received orders to abandon their houses and colleges, 
and adopt a secular dress. Soon after, they were accused of 
fomenting a popular insurrection in Madrid, and expelled from 
Spanish territory. The example was speedily followed by the 
King of Naples, and the Duke of Parma. In 1773 the order was 
suppressed by a bull from Pope Clement XIV. For forty-one 
years the order had no existence save in its scattered and proscribed 
adherents. In 1814, Pius VII pubHshed the bull for its resto- 
ration. From that period to the present, the order has been 
constantly progressive. It has revived many of its missionary 
stations, re-opened its colleges, convents and hospitals; and again 
been dispersing its missionaries over the globe. 

The whole number of Jesuits that came to this country from 
their first advent in 1611, up to 1833, was twelve hundred. When 
France ceded their possessions east of the Mississippi, to England 
in 1763, they were forbidden to recruit their numbers; thus as the 
old members died, the communities became extinct. The whole, 
or the greater part of the property of the Jesuits has been held by 
the British government. The Catholic institutions in the United 
States and Canada, have now, with few exceptions, no connection 
with them. 

It only remains to speak of the remote results of these early 
missionary efibrts. So far as they bear upon our country now. 



104 HISTORY OF THE 

they may seem slight and unworthy of notice; yet they form a 
prominent feature in our colonial history. 

The immediate results of the Jesuit missions, were hopeful and 
stimulating. So long as the natives had no patterns of Christianity 
to follow but the apostle, bringing his own and his Redeemer's cross 
among them, they could only revere the new religion, and wrestle 
against it, as passion warring with conscience. Under such 
influences, christian virtues were blooming along the path of the 
messengers from Noi-ridgewok to the bay of Che-goi-me-gon. It 
is a pleasing reUef to turn aside from the almost unremitted din of 
battle which raged around the progress of settlement in this land, 
and the wrangling encounters of opinion within the borders of New 
England, to the quiet heroism of the Jesuits, as they went 'forth 
carrying the "Prayer" (as the Indians termed their religion,) 
building chapels where the rude wigwams had been man's only 
resting place, and bringing whole villages from the wild wonder of 
an indefinite fear, to the subdued awe of worshipping behevers; — 
the moral prodigy, the emblem of earth's redemption, the sway of 
the man of peace, over the men of war. It is a singular fact that 
these missionaries succeeded in fixing religious principle without 
the tedious and patient process of literary education and subtle 
reasoning. In an early part of the eighteenth century an eflTort 
was made on the part of the Protestants to draw oflf the Abenakis 
from their attachments to the faith of the Jesuits. The Rev. 
Joseph Baxter, of Medfield, Mass., was despatched on this work, 
but was obliged to return after being patiently heard, confessing 
himself foiled by the unwillingness of the natives to learn any 
better way. The immediate results of the Jesuit missions were 
blessed. Of the remote results, little is to be said in praise. It was 
something that, by their carrying the cross of life before the 
artillery of death, souls of the red men might be enrolled among 
the redeemed from every kindred, ere the white man had spoiled 
their religion and blotted out their name. But the danger which 
the Jesuits foresaw, came upon their converts. The remote result 
was as they feared. Said Father Marest, writing from Kaskasias 
in Illinois: — "should any of the whites who came among us make 
a profession of licentiousness, or perhaps irreligion, their pernicious 
example would make a deeper impression upon the minds of the 
Indians than all that we could say to preserve them from the same 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 105 

disorders. They would not fail to reproach us as they have 
already done in some places, that we take advantage of the facility 
with which they believe us; that the laws of Christianity are not as 
severe as we represent them to be; since it is not to be credited 
that persons as enlightened as the French, and brought up in the 
bosom of religion, would be willing to rush to their own destruction, 
and precipitate themselves into hell, if it were true that such and 
such an action merited a punishment so terrible." The danger 
was more than the missionary feared; it was first the insinuating 
pestilence of corruption, and then the sword of extermination. 
Mark the transformation in the beautiful lines of Whittier: 

" On the brow of a hill which slopes to m^sat 
The flowing river and bathe at its feet, 
A rude and mishapely chapel stands. 
Built up in that wild bj^ unskilled hands ; 
Yet the traveller knows it a place of prayer, 
For the holy sign of the cross is there ; 
And should he chance at that place to be. 

Of a Sabbath morn on some hallowed day. 
Well might the traveller start to see 

The tall dark forms that take their way 
From the birch canoe on the river shore, 
And the forest paths to that chapel door ; 
And marvel to mark the naked knees, 

And the dusky foreheads bending there, — 
And, stretching his long thin arms over these. 

In blessing and in prayer, ^ 

Like a shrouded spectre, pale and tall, 
In his coarse white vesture. Father Ralle. " 



But now, 



" No wigwam smoke is curling there ; 
The very earth is scorched and bare ; 
And they pause and listen to catch a sound 
Of breathing life, but there comes not one. 
Save the fox's bark, and the rabbit's bound ; 
And here and there on the blackening ground. 



Note. — Father Ralle was a missionary among the Abenakis, in 1724. His luissiou 
station was upon the Kennebec in Maine, near the village of Norridgewok. In the 
war which the English and their Indian allies waged against the Abenakis, he was a 
victim. When a hostile band approached his village of converts, he presented himself, 
in hopes to save his flock ; but fell under a discharge of musketry. So says the Jesuit 
Relations. Hutchinson says he shut himself up in a wigwam, from which he firedupon 
the English. A cross and a rude monument marked the spot until 1833, when an 
acre of land was purchased including the site of Ralle's church and his grave, and 
over his grave a shaft erected twenty feet high, surmounted by a cross, in the presence 
of a large concourse of people. Bishop Fenwick directed the ceremonies, and 
delivered an address. Delegates from the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, and Canada 



Indians were present. 



106 HISTORY OF THE 

White bones are glistening in the sun. 

And where the house of prayer arose. 

And the holy hymn at daylight's close, ' 

And the aged priest stood up to bless 

The children of the wilderness, 

There is nought save ashes sodden and dank. 
And the birchen boats of the Norridgewok, 
Tethered to tree and stump and rock. 

Rotting along the river bank." 

The Jesuits faded away with the decHne, or end of French 
dominion east of the Mississippi, in 1763. There is Httle beyond 
such relics as are found of Father Ralle, (see preceding note,) to 
mark their advent here. At the west, their presence can be but 
djmly traced; the rehgion they inculcated exists among some of 
the Indian tribes, but hardly sufficient to identify it; the rude cross 
occasionally found at the head of an Indian grave, is perhaps as 
distinct evidence as any that exists, (other than faithful records,) of 
the early visit and long stay of the Catholic missionaries, upon the 
borders of our western lakes, and in the upper vallies of the 
Mississippi. Among the Indians of Western New York, all that 
remains to mark the Jesuit missionary advent, is the form of the 
cross in their silver ornaments. 

How different has been the destiny of the Protestant advent 
upon the shores of New England! The Pilgrim Fathers — cotem- 
porary with the Jesuits, — spread their faith among the natives, 
with nearly as little success perhaps; but they maintained their 
ground, became a part of the great fabric of religious and political 
freedom that was rearing; their impress is indelibly stamped upon 
our country and its institutions. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 107 



CHAPTER III. 

PROGRESS OF COLONIZATION, PROMINENT EVENTS CONNECTED WITH 
IT, FROM 1627 TO 1763. 



This embraces a period of one hundred and thirty-six years; 
or, the entire French occupancy from the period of effectual 
colonization under Champlain upon the St. Lawrence, to that of 
English conquest, and the end of French dominion east of the 
Mississippi. 

The long succession of interesting events; the details of the 
French and Indian, and French and English wars; belong to our 
general history. For the purposes of local history it will only 
be necessary to embrace, with any considerable degree of minute- 
ness, such portions of them as had a direct local relation. 

But little success attended the first efforts of colonization upon 
the St. Lawrence. Fourteen years after the founding of Quebec, 
(in 1662) the population was reduced to fifty souls. The ill-success 
was principally owing to the hostilities of the Iroquois; that had 
been first excited by the unfortunate alliance of Champlain with 
the Hurons; the rivalry between different interests in the fur trade; 
and jarring and discord arising out of a mixed population of Catho- 
lics and Protestants, who brought to the New World much of the 
intolerance that characterized that period. Most of the colonists 
were mere adventurers; more intent upon present gain, if indeed 
most of them had any definite purposes beyond the freedom from 
restraint, the perfect liberty that an ill-governed far off colony 
offered to them; than upon any well regulated efforts at 
colonization. 

In order to adjust dissensions that existed in the colony, produce 
harmony of effort, and generally, to strengthen the colonial enter- 
prize, in 1627 Cardinal Richelieu organized what was called the 



108 HISTORY OF THE 

company of New France — or, company of an Hundred Partners. 
The primary object of the association, was the conversion of the 
Indians to the CathoUc faith, by the co-operation of the zealous 
Jesuits; the secondary, an extension of the fur trade, of commerce 
generally, and to discover a route to the Pacific ocean and China 
through the great rivers and lakes of New France. This company 
was invested not only with a monopoly of trade, but with a 
religious monopoly; protestants and ''other heretics" were entirely 
excluded. An inauspicious commencement: — monopoly and 
bigotry went hand in hand. It was in the order of Providence that 
neither, in whatever form they might assume, should have any 
permanent success upon this side of the Atlantic. 

The company stipulated to send to New France, three hundred 
tradesmen, and to supply them with all necessary utensils for three 
years; after which time they were to grant to each workman 
sufficient land for his support, and grain for seed. The company 
also stipulated to colonize the lands embraced in their charter, 
with six thousand inhabitants, before the year 1643, and to provide 
each settlement with three Catholic priests, whom they were to 
support for fifteen years. The cleared land was then to be granted 
to the Catholic clergy for the maintenance of the church. Certain 
prerogatives were at the same time secured to the king; such as 
religious supremacy, homage as sovereign of the country, the right 
of nominating commandants of the forts and the officers of justice, 
and on each succession to the throne the acknowledgement of a 
crown of gold weighing thirteen marks. The company had also 
the right of conferring titles of distinction, some of which were 
required to be confirmed by the king. The right to traffic in 
peltries, and engage in other commerce, other than the cod and 
whale fisheries, was at the same time granted in the charter. The 
king presented the company two ships of war, upon condition that 
the value should be refunded, if fifteen hundred French inhabitants 
were not transported into the country in the first ten years. The 
descendants of Frenchmen inhabiting New Prance, and all savages 
who should be converted to the Catholic faith, were permitted to 
enjoy the same privileges as natural born subjects; and all artificers 
sent out by the company, who had spent six years in the French 
colony, were permitted to return and settle in any town in France. 

The design of the government, was to strengthen the claims of 
France to territory in North America. The company, as was 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 109 

afterwards demonstrated, designed to benefit themselves, through 
the extension of the fur trade. 

Cha.aiplaix was appointed Governor. For the first few years, 
the colony, from various causes connected with its remote position 
from the parent country; the hardships of the forest, and the hos- 
tility of the Iroquois, suffered extremely, and was almost upon the 
point of breaking down. Ships that had been sent out with sup- 
plies had been captured by Sir David Kerth, then in the employ- 
ment of the British Crown. The depredations of the Iroquois kept 
the colony in check, diminished their numbers, and crippled theii 
exertions, until the year 1629, when the French adventurers were 
involved in the deepest distress. Kerth who had succeeded in 
cutting off several expeditions of supply vessels from France, and 
finally reducing them almost to starvation, sailed up the St. Law- 
rence and made an easy conquest of Quebec, on the 20th, July, 
1629. In October following, Chaimplain returned to France; most 
of his company, however, having remained in Canada. 

About this period, a peace was concluded between England and 
France, by the treaty of St. Germaine. This restored to France, 
Quebec, with its other possessions upon this continent. Champlain 
I'esumcd the government of Canada. The Jesuits with their 
accustomed zeal commenced anew their efforts; and from this 
period to the final English conquests in 1759, a rivalship and 
growing hostility, partly religious and partly commercial, took 
place between the English and French colonists, which was 
evinced by mutual aggressions, at some periods, while profound 
peace existed between their respective sovereigns in Europe. 

Champlaix in his return from France to resume his office of 
governor, came with a squadron provided with necessary supplies 
and armaments. A better organization of the colonial enterprise 
was had; measures were adopted to reconcile existing difficulties, 
2:rowing out of the immoral principles of the emigrants, and to 
prevent the introduction into the colony of any but those of fair 
character. 

Note. — The colonization of New France, commenced but with little regard to the 
character of the colonists. It was rather such ns could be induced to come out, than 
such as the Company would have preferred. The prisons and work houses of France, 
a discharfjed soldiery, and those generally with whom no change could be for the worse, 
formed a large portion of the early colonists. The Baron la Hontan, who came out to 
Quebec in the year 1683, speaks of this as well as all things that came under his 
oljservation, with much freedom: — "Most of the inhabitants are a free sort of people 
that removed hither from France and brought with them but little money to set up 



110 History of the 

In 1635 a college of the order of Jesuits was established at 
Quebec, which was of great advantage in improving the morals of 
the people, that had grown to a state of open licentiousness. 

At this period the colony suffered a great misfortune in the death 
of Champlain. "With a mind warmed into enthusiasm by the 
vast domain of wilderness that was stretched out before him, and 
the glorious visions of future grandeur which its resources opened: 
a man of extraordinary hardihood and the clearest judgment; a 
brave officer and a scientific seaman; his keen forecast discerned, 
in the magnificent prospect of the country which he occupied, the 
elements of a mighty empire of which he had hoped to be founder. 
With a stout heart and ardent zeal, he had entered upon the 
project of colonization; he had disseminated valuable knowledge of 
its resources by his explorations; and had cut the way through 
hordes of savages, for the subsequent successful progress of the 
French towards the lakes." * 

During the administration of Montneagnv, who succeeded 
Champlain, the colony made but little progress, except in the 
extension of its trade in furs. 

The religious institutions of the Jesuits about this period, were 
considerably augmented; a seminary was established at Sillery, 
near Quebec; the convent of St. Ursula at Quebec, established by 
Madame de la Peltrie, a young widow of rank, who had engaged 
several Sisters of the Ursulines at Tours, with whom she sailed 
from Dieppe in a vessel which she chartered at her own expense. 



withal. The rest are those who were soldiers about thirty or forty years ago, at which 
time the regiment of Carigan was broken up." * » * " After this, several ships 
were sent hither from France, with a cargo of women of an ordinarj- reputation. The 
vestal virgins were heaped up, (if I may so speak), one above another, in three 
different apartments, where the bridegrooms singled out their brides just as a butcher 
does a ewe from amongst a flock of sheep. In these three seraglios there was such a 
variety and change of diet as could satisfy the most whimsical appetites ; for here was 
some big, some little, some fair, some brown, some fat and some meagre. In fine, 
every one might be fitted to his mind: — and indeed the market had such a run, that in 
fifteen days time they were all disposed of. I am told that the fattest went ofT best, 
under the apprehension that these being less active, would keep truer to their engage- 
ments, and hold out better against the nipping cold of winter." * * * "In some 
parts of the world to which vicious European women are transported, the mob of those 
countries do seriously believe that their sins are so defaced by the ridiculous christening 
I took notice of before, that they are looked upon ever after as ladies of virtue, of' 
honor, and untarnished conduct of life." * * * " After the choice was determined 
the marriage was concluded upon the spot, in the presence of a priest and a public 
notary ; and the next day the Governor General, bestowed upon the married couple, a 
bull, a cow, a hog, a sow, a cock, a hen, two barrels of salt meat and eleven crowns." 

* History of Illinois. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. Ill 

A seminary of the order of St. Sulpicious was also founded at 
Montreal. 

The Company of New France came short of fulfilling their 
charter. Little was done by them either to encourage the settle- 
ment of the country, or for the advancement of agriculture, the 
Cur trade almost engrossing their attention. In the remote points 
of the wilderness, forts of rude construction had been erected; but 
these were merely posts of defence, or depots of the trade, the 
dominions of which, at that early period, stretched through tracks 
of wilderness large enough for kingdoms. The energies of the 
colonists were cramped by the Iroquois, who hung like hungry 
wolves around the track of the colonists, seeking to glut their 
vengeance against the French by butchering the people, and plun- 
dering the settlements whenever opportunities occurred. 

In 1640 Montreal was selected to be the nearest rendezvous for 
converted Indians. The event was celebrated by a solemn mass. 
In August of the same year, in the presence of the French gath- 
ered from all parts of Canada, and of the native warriors sum- 
moned from the wilderness, the festival of the assumption was 
solemnized on the Island itself. In 1647, the traders and mission- 
aries had broken out from the St. Lawrence and advanced as far as 
the shores of Lake Huron. Previous to 1666, trading posts were 
established at Michillimackinac, Sault St. Marie, Green Bay, 
Chicago, and St. Joseph. 

The progress of the missionaries and traders was slow around 
the shores of the western lakes. After one post was established, 
it was in most instances the work of years to advance and occupy 
another position. In 1665, Father Claude Allouez entered the 
great village of the Chippeways at the bay of Che-goi-me-gon . 
A council was convened at the time, to prepare for threatened 
hostiUties with the Sioux of the Mississippi. ''The soldiers of 
France," said Allouez, "will smooth the path between the Chip- 
peways and Quebec, brush the pirate canoes from the intervening 
rivers, and leave to the Five Nations, no alternative, but peace or 
destruction." The admiring savages, who then for the first time 
looked upon the face of a white man, were amazed at the picture 
he displayed of "hell and the last judgement." He soon lighted 
the Catholic torch at the council fires of more than twenty different 
nations. The Chippeways pitched their tents near his cabin to 
receive instruction. The Pottowotamies came hither from lake 



112 HISTORY OF THE 

Michigan, and invited him to their homes. The Sacs and Foxes 
imitated their example, and the IlUnois, diminished in numbers and 
glory by repeated wars with the Sioux of the Mississippi on the 
one hand, and the Iroquois, or Five Nations, armed with muskets, 
on the other, came hither to rehearse their sorrows. 

Marquette was the pioneer beyond the lakes. He was early at 
St. Mary's, with Allouez, assisting in the conversion of the 
Indians, and in extending the influence of France. "He belonged 
to that extraordinary class of men (the Jesuit missionaries,) who, 
mingling happiness with suffering, purshased for themselves undy- 
ing glory. Exposed to the inclemencies of nature and to savage 
hostilities, he took his life in his hand and bade them defiance; 
waded through water and through snows without the comfort of 
a fire, subsisted on pounded maize, and was frequently without 
food, except the unwholesome moss he gathered from the rocks. 
He labored incessantly in the cause of his Redeemer — slept with- 
out a resting place, and travelled far and wide, but never without 
peril. Still, said he, life in the wilderness has charms — his heart 
swelled with rapture as he moved over waters transparent as the 
most limpid fountain. Living like a patriarch beneath his tent, 
each day selecting a new site for his dwelling, which he erected in 
a few minutes, with a never failing floor of green, inlaid with 
flowers provided by nature; his encampment on the prairie resem- 
bled the pillar of stones where Jacob felt the presence of God, the 
venerable oaks around his tent — the tree of Mamre, beneath 
which Abraham broke bread with the angels."* 

The ministers of Louis the XIV. and Colbert, with Talon, the 
intendant of the colony, had formed a plan to extend the power of 
France from sea to sea. A vague idea had been obtained from the 
natives, that a great river flowed through the country beyond the 
Lakes, in a southerly direction. Marquette, selecting for his 
companion, Joliet, a citizen of Quebec, and for his guide, a young 
Indian of the Illinois tribe, undertook the mission of its discovery. 

Previous to his departure, a great council was held at St. Mary's. 
Invitations were sent to all the tribes around and beyond the head 
waters of lake Superior, even to the wandering hordes of tne 
remotest north; to the Pottawatomies at Green Bay, and to the 
Miamis of Chicago. St. Lusan appeared as the delegate of 

* Brown's History of Illinois. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 113 

France. "'It was then announced to the assembled envoys of the 
wild Republicans thus congregated together from the springs of 
the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, and the Red river, that they 
were placed under the protection of Louis XIV. , the king of 
France. Allouez acted as interpreter, and brilliantly clad officers 
from the veteran armies of Europe, mingled in the throng. 'A 
cross of red cedar was then raised, and the whole company bowing 
before the emblem of man's redemption, chanted to its glory a 
hymn of the seventh century;' and planting by its side a cedar 
column on which were engraved the arms of the Bourbons, it was 
supposed that the authority and faith of France was permanently 
united upon this continent."* 

On the 10th of June, 1673, Marquette and Joliet, with five 
Frenchmen as companions, transported upon their shoulders, across 
the narrow passage which divides the Fox river of Green Bay 
from the Wisconsin of the Mississippi, two bark canoes, and 
launched them upon its waters. The Lidians to whom Mar- 
quette had imparted his design, endeavored to dissuade him from 
it. "Those distant nations," they said, " never spare the stranger 
— the great river abounds with monsters which devour both men 
and canoes." "I shall gladly," replied Marquette, "lay down my 
life for the salvation of souls." " The tawny savage, and the 
humble missionary of Jesus, thereupon united in prayer.''! " My 
companion," said Marquette," is an envoy of France to discover 
new countries; and I am an embassador from God to enlighten 
them with the gospel." 

The party floated down the Wisconsin between alternate hills 
and prairies, without seeing man, or the wonted beasts of the 
forests, during which no sound broke the appalling silence, save 
the ripple of their own canoes, and the lowing of the buffalo. 
They entered the great "Father of waters," with a joy that 
could not be expressed. After descending the Mississippi about 
sixty leagues, they were attracted by a well beaten trail that came 
down to the water's edge. Halting, and tracing it for six miles 
they came to three Indian villages, on the banks of the Des 
Moines. Entering one of them, four old men advanced bearing a 
peace-pipe. "We are Illinois " f said they, and offered the calu- 



* History of Illinois t Bancroft. t " We are men. 

8 



114 HISTORY OF THE 

met. '• An aged chief received tliem at his cabin with upraised 
hands, exclaiming, 'how beautiful is the sun. Frenchmen, when 
thou comest to visit us. Our whole village awaits thee; thou shall 
enter in peace into all our dwellings.' And the pilgrims were 
followed by the devouring gaze of an astonished crowd. 

The party descended the Mississippi to the mouth of the 
Arkansas, and returning, entered the mouth of the Illinois. Coming 
up that river, they visited the villages upon its banks, the humihty. 
and kind words of Marquette conciliating and winning the favor 
of their inhabitants. In all the different nations and tribes the 
party had encountered in their long voyage, there was no demon- 
strations of hostility, except at one village, low down in their route 
on the western bank of the Mississippi. There, tiie natives 
assembled, armed for war. and threatened an attack. '-Now,*' 
thought Marquette, '-we must indeed ask the aid of the virgin;'" 
but trusting rather to the potency of a peace-pipe, embellished 
with the head and neck of brilliant birds, that had been hung roimd 
his neck by the chieftain upon the Des Moines, he raised it aloft. 
At the sight of the mysterious emblem, " God touched the hearts 
of the old men, who checked the impetuosity of the young; and 
throwing their bows and quivers into the canoes, as a token of 
peace, they prepared a hospitable welcome.'"* The tribe of 
Illinois, that inhabited its bank, entreated Marquette to come and 
reside among them. One of their chiefs, with their young men, 
conducted the party by the way of Chicago to lake Michigan; and 
before the end of September, all were safe in Green Bay. 

Thus, Marquette and Joliet, with their few companions, were 
the pioneer navigators of the Mississippi; above the mouth of the 
Arkansas; f the first Europeans to tread the soil of Wisconsin, 
Iowa. Illinois and Missouri. But it remained for another bold 



^OTK. — It is worthy of remark here, that most of these Indian nations of the West 
hated and feared the Iroquois. The early French adventurers knew well how to profit 
bv this. With more of good policy than truth, they were careful to represent them- 
selves as the enemies of the Iroquois, and to add that the great captain of the French 
had chastised the Five ^Vatious and commanded peace. In these first villages of the 
Illinois that Marquette and Joliet visited, a festival of fish, hominy, and the choicest 
viands from the prairies was prepared for the messengers who brought the glad tidings 
that the Iroquois had been subjugated. 

* Jesuit Relations. 

t Ferdinand De Soto, a Spanish adventurer, had in 1541, entered the mouth of 
the Mississippi, and ascended it probably as far up as the mouth of the Arkansas. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 115 

adventurer with more enlarged views; one who is identified 
prominently with our immediate local history, to complete tht; 
discovery. 

And what an advent was that of the indefatigable Jesuit ! He 
was highly educated, as were most of those of his order, that came 
out to the unexplored regions of the New World. He was a lover 
of nature in its rudeness, simplicity, beauty and grandeur. No 
wonder, that floating down the majestic river; viewing its banks 
upon either hand, their rich and variegated scenery; or up the 
lUinois, catching glimpses of wide prairies, skirted with wood-lands 
and carpeted with wild flowers, the buffalo and deer grazing and 
sporting upon them; flocks of swan and ducks rising upon the wing. 
or seeking shelter from the strangers in coves and inlets; — that 
he became an enthusiast; worshipped with increased devotion the 
Author of all things, to whose service he had dedicated himself; 
mingled with his prayers and thanksgivings, his admiration of the 
beautiful waters and landscapes that he was assisting to bring 
within the pale of his church, and under the temporal dominion of 
his king. 

JoLiET returned to Quebec to announce the discoveries: 
Marquette remained to preach the gospel among the Miamis 
who dwelt near Chicago. " Two years afterwards, sailing from 
Chicago to Mackinac, he entered a little river in Michigan. 
Erecting an altar, he said mass after the rites of the Catholic 
Church; then begging the men who conducted his canoe to leave 
him alone for half an hour; 

" in the darkling wood. 



Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down, 
And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks 
And supplication. " 

At the end of the half hour, they went to seek him, and he was 
no more ! The good missionary, discoverer of a world, had fallen 
asleep on the margin of the stream that bears his name. Near its 
mouth the canoe-men dug his grave in the sand. Ever after the 
forest rangers, if in danger on lake Michigan, would invoke his 
name. The people of the west will build his monument." * 

The success of Marquette and Joliet was destined to confirm 

* Bancroft 



116 HISTORY OF THE 

another adventurer, in his previously half formed resolutions to 
enter upon a broader and farther extended field of discovery; to 
lead another to find an uninterrupted navigation through a chain of 
lakes and rivers to the " country of the Illinois," and finally to 
trace the " great river" they had discovered, to its source. 



THE FIRST VESSEL UPON THE UPPER LAKES. 



An event transpiring within our borders, upon the banks of the 
Niagara, of so much local and general interest as the building and 
launching of the first sail vessel that floated upon the waters of 
lake Erie, demands especial notice, and more of minute detail than 
can be bestowed generally upon events preceding the main objects 
of this work. It was the pioneer advent of our vast inland 
(.'ommerce, the sails of which are now spread out upon our long 
chain of lakes and rivers, upon the borders and in the valleys of 
which an Empire has sprung into existence ! A commerce equal to 
the export trade of the whole union, with foreign countries; its 
principal mart, the "City of the Lakes," the young, the rapidly 
advancing emporium of the great West, and Western New York. 
Here, it will only be necessary to speak of the, humble beginning 
of all this; its first slow, and after rapid progress, will occupy 
succeeding pages. 

Robert Cavalier de i^a Salle, was a native of France, of 
good family, of extensive learning, and possessed an ample fortune. 
He renounced his inheritance by entering the seminary of the 
.Tessuits. After profiting by the discipline of their schools, and 
obtaining their praise for purity and vigilance, he had taken his 
discharge from their fraternity. With no companion but poverty, 
but with a boundless spirit of enterprise, about the year 1667, when 
the attention of all France was directed towards this continent, the 
young adventurer embarked for fame and fortune in the new 
world. Established at first as a fur trader at La Chine, he 
explored lake Ontario and ascended to lake Erie. Returning to 
France in 1775, by the aid of Count Frontenac he obtained the 
rank of nobility, and the grant of Fort Frontenac, now Kingston, 
on condition of maintaining a post there. The grant was in fact 
the concession of a large domain, and a monopoly of the traffic 
with the Five Nations. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. IH 

"In the portion of the wilderness of which the young man was 
proprietary, cultivated fields proved the fertility of the soil; his 
herd of cattle multiplied; groups of Iroquois built their cabins in the 
environs; a few French settled under his shelter; a few Franciscans 
now tolerated in Canada, renewed their missions under his 
auspices; the noble forest invited the construction of log cabins and 
vessels with decks; and no canoe-men in Canada could shoot a 
rapid with such address as the pupils of La Salle."* 

This was destined to be with him but a short stopping place; 
" flocks and herds," a small spot in the wilderness converted to 
rural civilized life, was not the climax of his ambition. He aspired 
to higher achievments than to be the patron of a village, or a 
trading post. The voyages of Columbus, and a history of the 
rambles of De Soto, were among the books he had brought with 
him from home. When Joliet returned from the west, after his 
tour with Marquette, he took Fort Frontenac in his way, and 
spread the news of the brilliant discoveries they had made. La 
Salle had caught from the Iroquois a ghmpse of the Ohio and its 
course, and some accounts of a new and hitherto undiscovered 
country bordering upon it. He conceived the design of making it 
the country of his prince. It was he who first proposed the union 
of New France with the valley of the Mississippi, and suggested 
their close connection by a line of military posts. He proposed 
also to open the commerce of Europe to them both, and for that 
purpose repaired to France. 

By his earnest, bold enthusiasm, — his tone of confidence in 
ultimate success — he made patrons of his enterprise, Colbert, the 
minister of Louis XIV., and at the instance of the Marquis de 
Seigneilly, Colbert's eldest son, he procured the exclusive right 
of a traffic in buffalo skins and a commission for the discovery of 
the Great River. The commission was as follows : — 

"LETTERS PATENT 

"GRANTED BY THE KING OF FRANCE TO THE SIEUR DE LA SALLE, ON THE 12tH OF MAY, 1678. 

" Louis, by ilie grace of God, king of France and Nararrc, to our dear and well 
beloved Robert Cavalier, Sieur de la Salle, greeting: — 

"We have received with favor the very humble petition which has been presented 
to us in your name, to permit you to endeavor to discover the western part of our 
country of New France; and we have coneented to this proposal the more willingly 
because there is nothing we have more at heart than the discovery of this countr}', 
through which it is probable that a passage may be found to Mexico; and because your 

* Bancroft. 



118 HISTORY OF THE 

diligence in clearing tha land which we granted to you by the decree of our council of 
the 13lh of May, 1675, and by letters patent of the same date, to form habitations upon 
the same lands, and to put Fort Frontenac in a good state of defence, the Seigniory and 
government whereof we likewise granted to you; affords us every reason to hope that 
you will succeed to our satisfaction, and to the advantage of our subjects of the said 
country. 

" For these reasons, and others thereunto moving us, we have permitted, and do 
hereby permit you, by these presents, signed by our hand, to endeavor to discover the 
western part of our country of New France ; and for the execution of this enterprise, 
to construct forts wherever you shall deem it necessary; which it is our will you shall 
hold on the same terms and conditions as Fort Frontenac, agreeably and conformably 
to our said letters patent of the 13th of May, 1675, which we have confirmed as far as 
is needful, and hereby confirm by these presents, — and it is our pleasure that they be 
executed according to their form and tenure. 

•' To accomplish this, and every thing above mentioned, we give you full powers; 
ou condition however, that you shall finish this enterprise in five years, in default of 
which their pursuits shall be void and of none effect; that you carry on no trade 
whatever, with the savages called Outaouacs, and others, who bring their beaver skins 
and other peltries to Montreal; and that the whole shall be done at your expense, and 
that of your company to which we have granted the privilege of trade in buffalo skins. 
And we call on Sieur de Frontenac our governor and lieutenant general, and on Sieur 
de Chesneau, intendant of justice, policy and finance, and on the officers who compose 
the supreme council in said country, to affix their signatures to these presents; for such 
is our pleasure. Given at St. Germaine en Laye, this 12th day of May, 1678, and of 
our reign the thirty-fifth. 

[Signed] LOUIS. 

COLBEKT. 

Accompanied by Tonti, an Italian, and Father Hennepin, a 
number of mechanics and mariners, with military and naval 
stores, and goods for the Indian trade, he arrived at Fort Frontenac 
in 1678. In the fall of that year, a wooden canoe of ten tons, the 
first that ever entered the Niagara river, bore a part of his com- 
pany to the foot of the rapids, at Lewiston. He established a 
trading post upon the present site of Fort Niagara. The work of 
ship-building was immediately commenced. The keel of a small 
vessel of sixty tons burthen, was laid at the mouth of Cayuga 
creek. * 



* This locality has been questioned. Governor Cass, locates La Salle's ship yard at 
Erie; Mr Bancroft at the mouth of the Tonawanda, or rather did so in his history of 
the United States, In a letter to the author, dated London May 17th, 1848, he says: — 
•' As to the ship building of La Salle above Niagara Falls, Mr. Catlin is quite con- 
fident it took place upon the oppo.site or Canada side of the river. His local knowledge 
is greater than mine, and his opinion merits the most respectful consideration." In 
coming to this conclusion, Mr Catlin must have set aside the authority of Hennepin, 
who was present and taking note of all that was passing at the time. He says the ship- 
building was commenced "two leagues above the Falls." This to be sure does not 
determine which side of the river it was; but it is determined in a portion of his journal 
that follows, that the portage of these first adventurers was upon this side. After the 
vessel was built Hennepin went to Fort Frontenac, and returning to join his comrades 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 1 1 

ToNTi and Hennepin, venturing among the Senecas, established 
relations of amity; while La Salle urged on the completion of 
his vessel; gathering, at the same time, furs from the natives, and 
sending on messengers with merchandize to trade for furs and 
skins, and to apprise the Illinois of his intended visit, and prepare 
the way for his reception. 

" Under the auspices of La Salle, Europeans first pitched a tent 
at Niagara; it was he who in 1679, amid the salvo from his little 
artillery, the chanting of the Te Deum, and the astonished gaze 
of the Senecas. first launched a wooden vessel, a bark of sixty 
tons, on the upper Niagara river, and in the Griffin, * freighted 
with a colony of fur traders for the valley of the Mississippi, on 
the 7th. day of August, unfurled a sail to the breezes of lake Erie." 

The following is Hennepin's account of the advent of La Salle 
upon the Niagara river, the building and launching of the Grif- 
fin, &c. : — 

*'0n the 14th day of January, 1679, we arrived at our cabin at 
Niagara, to refresh ourselves from the fatigues of our voyage. 
We had nothing to eat but Indian corn. Fortunately, the white 
fish, of which I have heretofore spoken, were just then in season. 
This delightful fish served to relish our corn. We used the water 
in which the fish were boiled in place of soup. When it grows 
cold in the pot, it congeals like veal soup. 

"On the 20th, I heard, from the banks Avhere we were, the voice 
of the Sieur de La Salle, who had arrived from Fort Frontenac f 
in a large vessel. He brought provisions and rigging necessary 
for the vessel we intended building above the great fall of Niagara, 
near the entrance into lake Erie. But by a strange misfortune, 
that vessel was lost through fault of the two pilots, who disagreed 
as to the course. 

" The vessel was wrecked on the southern shore of lakeOntario, 
ten leagues from Niagara. The sailors have named the place Lo. 

who had jrone up with the vessel to the " mouth of lake Erie " they cast anchor " at 
the foot of the three moiintains," and he speaks of the difficulty they had iu ascending 
the three mountains with their provisions, munitions of war, &c. The three moun- 
tains were evidently. — first, the high river bank at Lewiston; secondly, the distinct 
offset which may be seen near the residence of S. Scovel and thirdly, the upper ledge 
or terrace, upon the map inserted in Baron La Hontan's "voyages to North America" 
published in London, in 1703, the landing place at Lewiston is distinctly marked, and 
the "three mountains" of Hennepin, are called the " HtiZs." Additional evidence 
could be cited. The place where the Griffin was built is cleeurly designated, and should 
no longer be questioned. 

* In compliment to Count Frontenac whose armorial bearings were adorned by two 
griffins, as supporters. 

t Now Kingston. 



120 HISTORY OF THE 

Cap Enrage, (Mad Cap.) The anchors and cables were saved, but 
the goods and bark canoes were lost. Such adversities would have 
caused the enterprise to be abandoned by any but those who had 
formed the noble design of a new discovery. 

"The Sieur de La Salle informed us that he had been among 
the Iroquois Senecas, before the loss of his vessel, that he had 
succeeded so well in conciliating them, that they mentioned with ' 
pleasure our embassy, which 1 shall describe in another place, and 
even consented to the prosecution of our undertaking. This 
agreement was of short duration, for certain persons opposed our 
designs, in every possible way, and instilled jealousies into the 
minds of the Iroquois. The fort, nevertheless, which we were 
building at Niagara, continued to advance. But finally, the secret 
influences against us were so great, that the fort became an object 
of suspicion to the savages, and we were compelled to abandon its 
construction for a time, and content ourselves with building a habi- 
tation surrounded with palisades. 

"On the 22d we went two leagues above the great falls of 
Niagara, and built some stocks, on which to erect the vessel we 
needed for our voyage. We could not have built it in a more 
convenient place, being near a river which empties into the strait, 
which is between lake Erie and the great falls. In all my travels 
back and forth, I always carried my portable chapel upon my 
shoulders. 

" On the 26th, the keel of the vessel and other pieces being 
ready, the Sieur de La Salle sent the master carpenter named 
MovsE, to request me to drive the first bolt. But the modesty 
appropriate to my religious profession, induced me to decline the 
honor. He then promised ten louis d'or for that first bolt, to stim- 
ulate the master carpenter to advance the work. 

" During the whole winter, which is not half as severe in this 
country as in Canada, we employed in building bark huts one of the 
two savages of the Wolf tribe, whom we had engaged for hunting 
deer. I had one hut especially designed for observing prayers on 
holidays and Sundays. Many of our people knew the Gregorian 
chant, and the rest had some parts of it by rote. 

" The Sieur de La Salle left in command of our ship yard 
one ToNTi, an Italian by birth, who had come to France after the 
revolution in Naples, in which his father was engaged. Pressing 
business compelled the former to return to Fort Frontenac, and I 
conducted him to the borders of lake Ontario, at the mouth of the 
river Niagara. While there he pretended to mark out a house for 
the blacksmith, which had been promised for the convenience of 
the Iroquois. I cannot blame the Iroquois for not believing all that 
had been promised them at the embassy of the Sieur de La 

MOTTE. 

"Finally the Sieur de La Salle undertook his expedition on foot 
over the snow, and thus accomplished more than eighty leag-ues. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 121 

He had no food, except a small bag of roasted corn, and even that 
had failed him two days' journey from the fort. Nevertheless he 
arrived safely w^ith two men and a dog which drew his baggage 
on the ice, 

" Returning to our ship yard, we learned that the most of the 
Iroquois had gone to war beyond lake Erie, while our vessel was 
being built. Although those that remained were less violent, by 
reason of their diminished numbers, still they did not cease from 
coming often to our ship yard, and testifying their dissatisfaction at 
our doings. Some time after, one of them, pretending to be drunk 
attempted to kill our blacksmith. But the resistance which he met 
with from the smith, who was named La Forge, and who wielded 
a red hot bar of iron, repulsed him, and together with a reprimand 
which I gave the villian, compelled him to desist. Some days 
after, a squaw advised us that the Senecas were about to set fire 
to our vessel on the stocks, and they would, without doubt, have 
effected their object, had not a very strict watch been kept. 

" These frequent alarms, the fear of the failure of provisions, on 
account of the loss of the large vessel from Fort Frontenac, and 
the refusal of the Senecas to sell us Indian corn, discouraged our 
carpenters. They* were moreover enticed by a worthless fellow, 
who often attempted to desert to New York, (^JVouvelle Jorck,) a 
place which is inhabited by the Dutch, who have succeeded the 
Swedes. This dishonest fellow would have undoubtedly been suc- 
cessful, with our workmen, had I not encouraged them by exhorta- 
tions on holidays and Sundays after divine service. I told them 
that our enterprise had sole reference to the promotion of the glory 
of God, and the welfare of our Christian colonies. Thus I stimu- 
lated them to work more diligently in order to deliver us from all 
these apprehensions. 

"In the meantime the two savages of the Wolf tribe, whom we 
had engaged in our service, followed the chase, and furnished us 
with roe-bucks, and other kinds of deer, for our subsistence. By 
reason of which our workmen took courage and applied themselves 
to their business with more assiduity. Our vessel was consequently 
soon in a condition to be launched, which was done, after having 
been blessed according to our church of Rome. We were in 
haste to get it afloat, although not finished, that we might guard it 
more securely from the threatened fire, 

"This vessel was named The Griffin, (Le Griffon) in allusion to 
the arms of the Count de Frontenac, which have two Griffins for 
their supports. For the Sieur de La Salle had often said of this 
vessel, that he would make the Griffin fly above the crows. We 
fired three guns, then sung the Te Deum, which was followed by 
many cries of joy. 

" The Iroquois who happened to be present, partook of our joy 
and witnessed our rejoicings. We gave them some brandy to 



122 HISTORY OF THE 

drink, as well as to all our men, who slung their hammocks under 
the deck of the vessel, to sleep in greater security. We then left 
our bark huts, to lodge where we were protected from the insults 
of the savages. 

"The Iroquois having returned from their beaver hunt, were 
extremely surprised to see our ship. They said we were the 
Ot-kon, which means in their language, penetrating minds. They 
could not understand how we had built so large a vessel in so short 
a time, although it was but sixty tons burthen. We might have 
called it a moving fort, for it caused all the savages to tremble, 
who lived within a space of more than five hundred leagues, along 
the rivers and great lakes. 

" I now went in a bark canoe, with one of our savage hunters, to 
the mouth of lake Erie. I ascended the strong rapids twice with 
the assistance of a pole, and sounded the entrance of the lake. It 
did not find them insurmountable for sails, as had been falsely 
represented. I ascertained that our vessel, favored by a north or 
northeast wind, reasonably strong, could enter the lake, and then 
sail throughout its whole extent with the aid of its sails alone; and 
if they should happen to fail, some men could be put on shore and 
tow it up the stream. 

"Before proceeding upon our voyage of discovery, I was obliged 
to return to Fort Frontenac, for two of our company to aid me in 
my religious labors. I left our vessel riding at two anchors, about 
a league and a half from lake Erie, in the strait which is between 
that lake and the great falls. I embarked in a canoe with the Sieur 
de Charon, and a savage; we descended the strait towards the 
great falls, and made the portage with our canoe to the foot of the 
great rock of which we have spoken, where we re-embarked and 
descended to lake Ontario. We then found the barque which the 
Sieur de la Forest had bi'ought us from Fort Frontenac. 

"After a few days, which were employed by the Sieur de la 
Forest in treating with the savages, we embarked in the vessel, 
having with us fifteen or sixteen squaws, who embraced the oppor- 
tunity, to avoid a land passage of forty leagues. As they were 
unaccustomed to travel in this manner, the motion of the vessel 
caused them great qualms at the stomach, and brought upon us a 
terrible stench in the vessel. We finally arrived at the river A-o- 
ou-e-gwa* where the Sieur de la Forest traded brandy for 
beaver skins. This traffic in strong drink was not agreeable to me, 
for if the savages drink ever so little, they are more to be dreaded 
than madmen. Our business being finished, we sailed from the 
southern to the northern shore of the lake, and, favored by fair 
winds, soon passed the village which is on the other side of Keute 
and Ganneousse. As we approached Fort Frontenac the wind 

* Probably the Genesee River. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 123 

failed us, and I was obliged to get into a canoe with two young 
savages, before I could come to land. 

^ ^ ^ ^ 4(* 4f. 

•'A few days after, a favorable wind sprung up, and fathers 
Gabriel de la Ribourde, and Zenobe Mambre, and myself, 
embarked from Fort Frontenac in the brigantine. We arrived in 
a short time at the mouth of the river of the Senecas, (Oswego 
river.) which empties into lake Ontario. While our people went 
to trade with the savages, we made a small bark cabin, half a 
league in the woods, where we might perform divine service more 
conveniently. In this way we avoided the intrusion of the sava- 
ges, who came to see our brigantine, at which they greatly 
wondered, as well as to trade for powder, guns, knives, lead, but 
especially brandy, for which they are very greedy. This was the 
reason why we were unable to arrive at the river Niagara before 
the thirtieth day of July. 

"On the 4th of August I went over land to the great falls of 
Niagara with the sergeant, named La Fleur, and from thence to 
our ship yard, which was six leagues from lake Ontario, but we did 
not find there the vessel we had built. Two young savages slyly 
robbed us of the little biscuit which remained for our subsistence. 
We found a bark canoe, half rotten, and without paddles, which 
we fitted up as well as we could, and having made a temporary 
paddle, risked a passage in the frail boat, and finally arrived on 
board our vessel, which we found at anchor a league from the 
beautiful lake Erie. Our arrival was welcomed with joy. We 
found the vessel perfectly equipped with sails, masts, and every 
thing necessary for navigation. We found on board five small 
cannon, two of which were brass, besides two or three arquebuses. 
A spread griffin adorned the prow, surmounted by an eagle. 
There were also all the ordinary ornaments, and other fixtures, 
which usually adorn ships of war. 

"The Iroquois, who returned from war with the prisoners taken 
from their enemies, were extremely surprised to see so large a 
vessel, like a floating castle, beyond their five cantons. They 
came on board, and were surprised beyond measure, to find we 
had been able to carry such large anchors through the rapids of 
the river St. Lawrence. This obliged them to make frequent use 
of the word gannoron, which, in their language signifies, how 
wonderful. As there were no appearances of a vessel when they 
went to war, they were greatly astonished now to see one entirely 
furnished on their return, more than 250 leagues from the habita- 
tions of Canada, in a place where one was never seen before. 

"I directed the pilot not to attempt the ascent of the strong 
rapids at the mouth of lake Erie until further orders. On the 
16th and 17th, we returned to the banks of lake Ontario, and 
ascended with the barque we had brought from Fort Frontenac, 



124 HISTORY OF THE 

as far as the great rock of the river Niagara. We there cast 
anchor at the foot of the three mountains, where we were obUged 
to make the portage caused by the great falls of Niagara, which 
interrupt the navigation. 

"Father Gabriel, who was sixty-four years old, underwent all 
the fatigues of this voyage, and ascended and descended three 
times the three mountains, which are very high and steep at the 
place where the portage is made. Our people made many trips, 
to carry the provisions, munitions of war, and other necessaries, 
for the vessel. The voyage was painful in the extreme, because 
there were two long leagues of road each way. It took four men 
to carry our largest anchor, but brandy being given to cheer them, 
the work was soon accomplished, and we all returned together to 
the mouth of lake Erie. 



" We endeavored several times to ascend the current of the 
strait into lake Erie, but the wind was not yet strong enough. 
We were therefore obliged to wait until it should be more 
favorable. 

" During this detention, the Sieur de La Salle employed our 
men in preparing some ground on the western side of the strait of 
Niagara, where we planted some vegetables for the use of those 
who should come to live in this place, for the purpose of keeping 
up a communication between the vessels, and maintaining a corres- 
pondence from lake to lake. We found in this place some wild 
chervil and garlic, which grow spontaneously. 

" We left father Melithon at the habitation we had made above 
the great falls of Niagara, with some overseers and workmen. 
Our men encamped on the bank of the river, that the lightened 
vessel might more easily ascend into the lake. We celebrated 
divine service on board every day, and our people, who remained 
on land, could hear the sermon on holidays and Sundays. 

" The wind becoming strong from the northeast, we embarked, 
to the number of thirty-two persons, with tw^o of our order who 
had come to join us. The vessel was w^ell found with arms, 
provisions and merchandise, and seven small cannon. 

"The rapids at the entrance into the lake are very strong. 
Neither man, nor beast, nor ordinary bark can resist them. It is 
therefore almost impossible to stem the current. Nevertheless, 
we accomplished it, and surmounted those violent rapids of the 
river Niagara by a kind of miracle, against the opinion of even 
our pilot himself. We spread all sail, when the wind was strong 
enough, and, in the most difficult i)laces, our sailors threw out tow 
lines, which were drawn by ten or twelve men on shore. We 
thus passed safely into lake Erie. 

"We set sail on the 7th of August, 1679, steering west south 
west. After having chanted the Te Deum, we fired all the cannon 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 125 

and arquebuses in presence of many Iroquois warriors, who had 
brought captives from Tintonha, that is to say, from the people of 
the prairies, who live more than 400 leagues from their cantons. 
We heard these savages exclaim, gannoron, in testimony of their 
wonder. 

"Some of those who saw us did not fail to report the size of 
our vessel to the Dutch at New York, {Moiivelle Jorck), with 
whom the Iroquois carry on a great traffic in skins and furs; which 
they exchange for fire arms, and blankets, to shelter them from 
the cold. 

•' The enemies of our great discovery, to defeat our enterprises, 
had reported that lake Erie was full of shoals and banks of sand, 
which rendered navigation impossible. We therefore did not omit 
sounding, from time to time, for more than twenty leagues, during 
the darkness of the night. 

''On the 8th, a favorable wind enabled us to make about forty- 
five leagues, and we saw almost all the way, the two distant shores, 
fifteen or sixteen leagues apart. The finest navigation in the 
world, is along the northern shores of this lake. There are three 
capes, or long points of land, which project into the lake. W"e 
doubled the first, which we called after St. Francis. 

"On the 9th, we doubled the two other capes, or points of land, 
giving them a wide berth. We saw no islands or shoals on the 
north side of the lake, and one large island, towards the southwest, 
about seven or eight leagues from the northern shore, opposite the 
strait which comes from lake Huron. 

"On the 10th, early in the morning, we passed between the 
large island, which is toward the southwest, and seven or eight 
small islands, and an islet of sand, situated towards the west. We 
landed at the north of the strait, through which lake Huron is 
discharged into lake Erie. 

"Aug. 11. We sailed up the strait and passed between two 
small islands of a very charming appearance. This strait is more > 
beautiful than that of Niagara. It is thirty leagues long, and is 
about a league broad, except about half way, where it is enlarged, 
forming a small lake which we call Sainte Claire, the navigation of 
which is safe along both shores, which are low and even. 

"This strait is bordered by a fine country and fertile soil. Its 
coarse is southerly. On its banks are vast meadows, terminated 
by vines, fruit trees, groves and lofty forests, so arranged that we 
could scarcely believe but there were country seats scattered 
through their beautiful plains. There is an abundance of stags, 
deer, roe-Ducks and bears, quite tame and good to eat, more 
delicious than the fresh pork of Europe. We also found wild 
turkeys and swans in abundance. The high beams of our vessel 
were garnished with multitudes of deer, which our people killed in 
the chase. 

"Along the remainder of this strait, the forests are composed of 



126 HISTORY OF THE 

walnut, chestnut, plum and pear trees. Wild grapes also abound, 
from which we made a little wine. There are all kinds of wood 
for building purposes. Those who will have the good fortune some 
day to possess the beautiful and fertile lands along this strait, will 
be under many obligations to us, who have cleared the way, and 
traversed lake Erie for a hundred leagues of a navigation before 
unknown." 

The Griffin cast anchor in Green Bay. After being freighted 
with a rich cargo of furs, it started upon its return voyage. Fi^om 
the period of its departure, no tidings ever came of the vessel or 
crew. Capricious and dangerous as the navigation of the lakes 
has since proved; especially in the advanced season of navigation 
at which the Griffin must have attempted a return; there is little 
wonder that the small craft, imperfectly built as she must have 
been, with the stinted means that the bold projector could only 
have had, met with the fate that in after years of more perfect 
architecture, and experience in lake navigation, so many others 
have been subjected to. 

Chano-e, progress and improvement, will meet us at every step in 
tracing our local history; prompting to a halt, and a comparison 
of the present with the past; but not often as urgently as here. 
This was the humble beginning of our lake commerce. Here, 
upon the banks of the Niagara, were a small band of adventurers, 
headed, cheered on and encouraged by one who was in advance 
of his own age — should have belonged to this. How abstracted 
from the then civilized world, were these primitive ship builders ! 
A vast unexplored wilderness, a broad expanse of waters, of lakes 
and rivers, their surfaces as yet undisturbed but by the bark canoes 
of the natives, lay before them; behind, but a feeble colony of their 
countrymen who were hardly able to protect themselves from a 
stealthy foe that had rejected overtures of peace with their pale 
faced stranger visitors. In mid winter, with but stinted facilities. 



Note. — The translation is by O.H. Marshall of Buffalo. It first appeared in the 
Buffalo Commercial Advertiser, in 1845, and is copied by Mr. Schoolcraft in his notes 
on the Iroquois. It is from the French edition of Hennepin, published at Amsterdam 
in 1698. The original text is regarded as the best that has reached tliis country; — the 
only reliable one in fact; — and the faithfulness of the translation is fully guaranteed by 
the integrity and literarj- qualifications of the translator. The interest derived from the 
perusal of the early French Jesuits and travellers, is much increased by having their 
own fresh and vivid impressions detailed in their own words. This consideration, in 
connection with the fact that Hennepin's account has not heretofore been published in 
any form to render it generally accessible, induces the author to give it entire, omitting 
only a few paragraphs that have no necessarj' relation to the main subject 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 127 

they erected for themselves cabins and commenced the work of 
ship building i When the difficult work was consummated, the frail 
bark launched, their sails set to catch the breeze, they knew not to 
what disturbed waters and inhospitable shores it would carry them. 
They had witnessed the hostile demonstrations of the Iroquois, and 
had no warrant that the nations they were to meet in their new track 
would be any better reconciled to their further advance. They 
had but dim lights to guide them. They saw and heard the rush 
of waters; the earth beneath their pilgrim feet, as they threaded 
the dark forest that lay between their "place of ship building" and 
the '' three mountains," trembled with the weight and descent of 
the mighty volume. And yet they knew little of the vast sources 
from which such an aggregate proceeded. They had the glimpses 
of the "Great River" that Marquette and Joliet had given them, 
but knew not where it mingled with the ocean. Theirs was the 
mission to first traverse our great chain of lakes and rivers; to pass 
over the dividing lands, strike a tributary of the Mississippi, and 
pursue that river to the Gulf of Mexico. Theirs, the first Euro- 
pean advent that extended across from the noi'thern to the southern 
shores of the Atlantic. One hundred and thirty nine years ago, the 
Griffin set out upon its voyage, passed up the rapids of the Niagara, 
and unfurled the first sail upon the waters of the Upper Lakes. 
Intrepid navigator and explorer ! High as were hopes and 
ambition that could alone impel him to such an enterprise; far- 
seeing as he was; could the curtain that concealed the future 
from his view, have been raised, his would have been the excla- 
mation; — 

" Visions of gloiy spare my aching sight ; 
Ye unborn ages rush not on my soul !" 

He deemed himself but adding to the nominal dominions of his king; 
but opening a new avenue to the commerce of his country; 
founding a prior claim to increased colonial possessions. He was 
pioneering the way for an empire of freemen, who, in process of 
time, were to fill the valleys he traversed; the sails of whose 
commerce were to whiten the vast expanse of waters upon which 
he was embarking ! 

How often, when reflecting upon the triumphs of steam naviga- 
tion, do we almost wish that it were admitted by the dispensations 
of Providence, that Fulton could be again invested with mortality, 



128 HISTORY OF THE 

and witness the mighty achievments of his genius. Akin to this 
would be the wish that La Salle could rise from his wilderness 
grave in the far off south, and look out upon the triumphs of 
civilization and improvement over the vast region he was the first 
to explore. 

Ours is a country whose whole history is replete with daring 
entei-prises and bold adventures. Were we prone, as we should be, 
durably to commemorate the great events that have marked our 
progress, here and there, in fitting localities, more monuments 
would be raised as tributes due to our history and the memory of 
those who have acted a conspicuous part in it. Upon the banks of 
our noble river, within sight of the Falls, a shaft from our quarries 
would soon designate the spot where the Griffin was built and 
launched; upon its base, the name of La Salle, and a brief 
inscription that would commemorate the pioneer advent of our 
vast and increasing lake commerce. 

On his way up. La Salle, while passing through the "verdant 
Isles of the majestic Detroit," had debated planting a colony upon 
its banks; and he had planted a trading house at Mackinaw. After 
tlie Griflin had left, with the portion of his company he had retain- 
ed, in bark canoes, he ascended to the head of lake Michigan, or 
rather, to the mouth of the St. Joseph, where Allouez had 
preceded him and gathered a village of the Miamis. Anticipating 
the return of his ill-fated vessel, he remained and added to the 
small beginning that had been made thei'e, a trading house with 
pallisadcs, which was called the fort of the Miamis. Despairing 
of the return of the Griffin, leaving ten men to guard the fort, 
with Hennepin, two other missionaries, Tonti and about thirty 
followers, he ascended the St. Joseph, descended the Kankakee to 
its mouth, reaching an Indian village near Ottawa. From thence 
he descended the Illinois as far as lake Peoria, where he met large 
parties of Indians, who, desirous of obtaining axes and fire-arms, 
offered him the calumet and agreed to an alliance. Of the Griffin 
no tidings came; his men deeming their leader ruined by its loss, 
grew discontented. La Salle, who never desponded, exerted all 
his means to revive their hopes. "Our strength and safety" said 
he, " is in our union. Remain with me till spring and none shall 
remain thereafter, except from choice." He commenced building a 
fort. Thwarted by destiny, in allusion to his misfortunes, he called 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 129 

it Creve Coeur.* He despatched Hennepin to explore the Upper 
Mississippi, and renewed the unlucky business of ship building. 

Hennepin, with two companions, ascended the Mississippi, to the 
Falls which he named St, Anthony, as a tribute due to St. 
Anthony of Padua, whose protection and guidance he had invoked 
when starting on his expedition. On a tree near the cataract he 
engraved the cross and the arms of France, and by the way of 
the Wisconsin and Fox rivers returned to the French mission at 
Green Bay. What wanderers ! Even now, in 1848, when steam 
boats in fleets, are upon the Lakes and the Mississippi, and canals 
and rail-roads are in their vallies, a visit to the Falls of St. Anthony 
is more than an ordinary adventure. 

La Salle set his men to sawing -'trees into plank," and in 
March, with three companions, set off on foot for Fort Frontenac 
to procure recruits, and sails and cordage for the vessel that was 
going upon the stocks. Taking the ridge of high lands which divide 
the basin of the Ohio from that of the Lakes, the small party, with 
" skins to make moccasins, a musket and pouches of powder and 
shot, trudged through thickets and forests, waded through marshes 
and melting snows; without drink except water from the brooks, 
without food except supplies from the gun." Arriving at Fort 
Frontenac, which still acknowledged him for its lord, additional sup- 
plies were at -once furnished, and new adventurers flocked to his 
standard. With these he returned to the garrison he had left on 
the Illinois. 

There he found little to revive the spirits which must have been 
dead within him, if he had been a man of ordinary mould. A 
party of Iroquois had descended the river, attacked the Fort, mas- 
sacred the aged Franciscan Father Ribourde, and obliged Tonti 
and a few others, to flee to the Pottowattomies on lake Michigan 
for protection; La Salle and his companions repaired to Green 
Bay, recommenced trade, and estabhshed a friendly intercourse 
with the natives; found Tonti and his party, embarked from 
thence, left Chicago on the 4th of January, 1682, and after build- 
ing a spacious barge on the Illinois river, in the early part of that 
year, descended the Mississippi to the sea. On his way he raised! 
a cabin on the Chickasaw Bluff", a cross at the mouth of the Arkan- 

* Creve Coeiir: — The Fort of the Broken Hearted. 



130 HISTORY OF THE 

sas, and planted the arms of France near the gulf of Mexico. He 
claimed the country for France, and called it Louisiana. 

He returned to France in 1683, and reporting to his government 
his briUiant discoveries, preparations were made to supply him with 
ample means for colonization; and in July, 1684, he sailed with a 
Hcet of four vessels, for the Mississippi; on board of which were 
one hundred soldiers, six missionaries, "mechanics of various skill," 
and young women. 

The sequel is a chapter of disasters: — The colonists were badly 
selected; the mechanics "ill versed in their arts;" the soldiers, 
"spiritless vagabonds without discipUne or experience;" the volun- 
teers, generally rash adventurers, having "indefinite expectations;" 
so says Joutel, the military commander, and faithful historian of 
the expedition. Beaujeau, the naval commander, was deficient in 
judgment, unfit for his station, envious, proud, self-willed and self- 
conceited; incapable of any sympathy with the magnanimous 
heroism of La Salle. The lieet sailing as often wrong as right; 
(La Salle always right, but opposed by his naval commander;) 
after a tedious voyage of five months, reached, instead of its 
destination, the Bay of Matagorda in Texas. Here the store ship 
was wrecked by the careless pilot; the ample stores provided by 
the munificence that marked the plans of Louis XIV., lay scattered 
on the sea. La Salle obtained boats from the fleet, and by great 
efforts saved a part of the stores for immediate use. To heighten 
their distress, the natives came down from the interior to plunder 
the wreck, and two of the soldiers, or volunteers, were slain. 

The fleet returned, taking with it many who wei'e tired of the 
expedition, and deserted. " There remained upon the beach of 
.Matagorda, a desponding company of about two hundred and 
thirty souls, huddled together in a fort constructed with the frag- 
ments of their ship-wrecked vessel, having no hopes but in the 
constancy and elastic genius of La Salle."* A shelter was built 
at the head of the bay — a rude fortification, which was called St. 
Louis; La Salle himself marking the beams and tenons. He 
took possession of the country in the name of his king. It was 
this that made Texas a province of France, or a part of Louisiana. 

As soon as the encampment was completed. La Salle started 

* Bancroft. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 131 

with a party in canoes, to seek the mouth of the Mississippi, 
After an absence of four months, and the loss of fourteen of his 
followers, he returned in rags, having entirely failed in his object. 
Spending most of the year 1686, with twenty companions in New 
Mexico, — enticed there by the brilliant fictions of the rich mines of 
St. Barbe, the El Dorado of Northern Mexico. He found there 
no mines, but a " country unsurpassed in beauty and fertility." 

Returning to his colony in Texas, he found it diminished to about 
forty; among whom, ''discontent had given place to plans of 
crime." Leaving twenty of them to maintain the fort, he started 
with sixteen on foot to return to Canada for the purpose of 
getting farther recruits and means to prosecute enterprises not 
yet abandoned, though so often thwarted. No Spanish settlement 
was nearer than Pamico — no French settlement, than Illinois. 
•• With wild horses obtained from the natives to transport his 
baggage, he followed the track of the buffalo, pasturing his horses 
at night upon the prairie ; ascended streams of which he had never 
yet heard — marched through groves and plains of surpassing 
beauty, amid herds of deer, and droves of buffaloes; now fording 
the rapid torrent, now building a bridge by throwing some 
monarch of the forest across the stream, till he had passed the 
basin of the Colorado, and reached a branch of the Trinity river."* 

Of his company was Duhaut and L'Archiveque. The former 
had long shown a spirit of mutiny. "The base malignity of disap- 
pointed avarice," (they had both embarked capital in the enterprise.) 
"maddened by suffering, and impatient of control, awakened the 
fiercest passions of ungovernable hatred. Inviting MorangetI 
to take charge of the fruits of a buffalo hunt, they quarrelled with 
him, and murdered him. Wondering at the delay of his return. 
La Salle, on the 20th of March, went to seek him. At the brink 
of a river, he saw eagles hovering, as if over a carrion; and he fired 
an alarm gun. Warned by the sou«d, Duhaut and L'Archiveque 
crossed the river; the former skulked in the prairie grass; of the 
latter, La Salle asked: — 'where is my nephew?' At the moment 
of the answer, Duhaut fired; and without uttering a woi*d. La 
Salle fell dead! 'You are down now, grand Bashaw! you arc 
down now ! ' shouted one of the conspirators, as they despoiled his 

* Bancroft. t The nephew of La Salle. 



132 HISTORY OF THE 

remains, which were left on the prairie, naked and without burial, 
to be devoured by wild beasts." * 

Thus perished the pioneer navigator of our lakes, the father of 
colonization in the great central valley of the west, Robert 
Cavalier de la Salle ! Well did he merit the eulogy bestowed 
upon his memory, by the accompUshed historian, (Mr. Bancroft,) 
who has given him and his achievements, his successes and his 
reverses, a conspicuous place in our national annals. "For force 
of will and vast conceptions; for various knowledge and quick 
adaptation of his genius to untried circumstances; for a sublime 
magnanimity, that resigned itself to the will of Heaven, and yet 
triumphed over affliction by energy of purpose, and unfaltering 
hope, — he had no superior among his countrymen." 

Retribution in part was at hand. Duhaut and another of the 
conspirators, attempting afterwards to convert to their use an 
unequal share of the spoils, were themselves murdered, and their 
reckless associates joined the savages. Joltel, who commanded 
the expedition, the nephew of La Salle, and four others,, procured 
a guide and sought the Arkansas. They reached a beautiful 
country above the Red river, and afterward, with the exception of 
one only, who was drowned while bathing in a river, they all 
reached the Mississippi in safety, on the 24th of July, 1687. Upon 
its banks they discovered a cross, and near it a cabin occupied by 
four of their countrymen. Tonti, the faithful companion of La 
Salle, had descended the river in search of his friend. Failing to 
tind him, he had erected the cross and cabin, and left the men that 
.Ioutel found there, to guard them. On the 14th of September 



* Joutel. 

Note, — The account of Hennepin differs from that of Joutel. It is as follows: — 
"He, (La Salle,) was accompanied by Father Anastasi, and two natives who had 
served him as q:uides. After travelling about six miles, they found the bloody cravat of 
Saget, (one of La Salle's men,) near the bank of the river, and at the same time, two 
eagles were hovering over their heads, as if attracted by food on the ground. La Salle 
fired his gun, which was heard by the conspirators on the other side of the river. 
Duhnut and L'Archiveque immediately crossed over at some distance in advance. 
La Salle approached, and, meeting the latter, asked for Moranget, and was answered 
vaguely that he was along the river. At that moment Duhaut, who was concealed in 
the high grass, discharged his musket and shot him through the head. Father Anastasi 
was standing by his side and expected to share the same fate,, till the conspirators told 
him they had no design upon liis life. La Salle survived' about an hour, unable to 
speak, but pressing the hand of the good father, to signify that he understood what was 
said to him. The same kind friend dug his grave, buried him, and erected a cross 
over his remains." 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 12?> 

they reached the head quarters of To.\ti, in lUinois, and soon after 
passed through Chicago to Quebec, and from thence to France. 

Little is known of the after hfe of Tonti beyond what is gather- 
ed from a petition signed by him, and addressed to the French 
minister of Marine, in 1690. In that he asks for the command of 
a company to embark again in the service of his country, and 
recounts the services he had ah'eady rendered. He says that he 
remained at the Fort in IlHnois till 1684, where he was attacked by 
two hundred Iroquois, whom he repulsed, with groat loss on their 
side: that after spending a year in Quebec, under the orders of 
M. de la Barre, he returned to Illinois, and in 1686, in canoes, 
with forty men, he descended the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, 
in search of La Salle. Returning to Quebec, he put himself 
under the orders of De Nonville, and was with him at the head 
of a band of Indians and a company of Canadians, at the battle 
with the " Tsonnonthouans," (Senecas, ) where he forced an 
ambuscade. UZP^ See account that follows, of De Nonville's 
expedition to Irondequoit Bay, and battle with the Senecas. 
That he went again to Illinois in 1689, and again in search of 
La Salle's colony, but was deserted by his men, and unable to 
execute his designs. The petition is endorsed by Count Fronte- 
nac, who says: — '"Nothing can be truer than the account given 
by the Sieur de Tonti in his petition." 

Note. — La Salle, and the early Jesuits supposed the GriiBn was driven ashore in a 
gale, the crew murdered by the Lidiaus, and the vessel plundered. Such was 
undoubtedly the fact, and the author is enabled to fix with a considerable degree of 
certainty, upon the spot where this occurred. In the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser 
of January 'iSth, 1848, there is a communication from James W. Peters, of East Evans, 
Erie county, in which he says: — " Some thirty-five or forty years ago, on the IngersoH 
farm, in Hamburgh, a short distance below the mouth of the Eighteen Mile Creek, 
and on the summit of the high banks, in the woods, was found by the Messrs. 
Ingersoll, a large quantity of wrought iron, supposed to be seven or "eight hundred 
weight. It was evidently taken off a vessel. It was of superior quality, much eaten 
by the rust, and sunk deep in the soil. A large tree had fallen across it, which was 
rotted and mixed with the earth. There were trees growing over the iron from six to 
twelve inches in diameter, which had to be grubbed up before all the iron conld be got. 
Some twenty-six or seven years since, a man by the name of Walker, immsdiately 
after a heavy blow on the Lake, found on the beach near where the irons were found, 
a cannon, and immediately under it a second one. I saw them not jbity-eight hours 
after they were found. They were very much destroyed by ao-e and rust — filled uji 
with sand and rust. I cleared off enough from the breach of one to lav a number of 
letters bare. The words were French, and so declared at the time. The horns, oi' 
trunions, were knocked off." In a letter from the venerable David Eddy, of Ham- 
burgh, to the author, received while this work was going to press, he says that in the 
primitive settlement of that region — in 1805, there was found upon the lake shore, 
where a large body of sand and gravel had been removed during a violent gale, a 
"beautiful anchor." It was taken to Buffalo and Black Rock, excited a good deal of 
curiosity at the time, but no one could determine to what vessel it had belonged. 



134 HISTORY OF THE 

The expedition of La Salle traced to its disastrous and fatal 
termination; the western lake region, and the whole valley of the 
Mississippi, added to the dominions of France; let us return to the 
region of western New York, the banks of the St. Lawrence, to 
colonization under English auspices, advancing in this direction 
from the northern Atlantic coast. 

Previous to the building of the Griffin, La Salle had '' enclosed 
with pallisades a little spot at Niagara." This was the first blow 
struck, the first step taken as an earnest of occupation by Euro- 
peans, in all the region of New York west of Schenectady, if we 
except the short stay of the Jesuits, and perhaps some mission 
stations they may have established upon the Mohawk, and in the 
vicinity of Onondaga lake. It is to be presumed that the post at 
Niagara was after this, with but little intermission, used as a par- 
tially fortified trading station, until it was finally made a French 
garrison and occupied by an armed force. 

The French continued to extend their establishments. Following 
the track of Marquette and La Salle, they soon occupied 
prominent points in the upper vallies of the Mississippi, in what is 
now Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa. The Hurons of Canada were 
their fast allies. They conciliated and won the favor of all the 
Indian nations around the western lakes, exc'ept the Foxes and 
Ottagamis, who dwelt principally in that part of Michigan which 
lies upon Detroit river. " It was the studied policy of the French 
to secure the good will of the natives. The French explorers, 
traders and missionaries, advanced to their remotest villages in the 
prosecution of their several objects. They lodged with them in 
their camps, attended their councils, hunting parties and feasts; 
paid respects to their ceremonies, and were joined in the closer 
bonds of blood. The natural pliancy of the French character led 
them into frequent and kind associations with the savages, while 
the English were cold and forbidding in their manners. Besides, 
the Jesuit missionaries exerted no small influence in strengthening 
the friendship of the Indians. They erected little chapels in their 
territory, carpeted with Indian mats, and surmounted by the cross; 
took long journeys through the wilderness, performed the ceremo- 

There is no record of any vessel being wrecked here previous to 1805. The French 
and the English vessels were few upon iho lakes, numbering not more than two or 
three at any one time. A record of the loss of one at a later period than that of the 
advent of La Salle, would in all probability have been preserved. May we not well 
conclude that the iron, the cannon, and the anchor, were those of the Griffin ? 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 135 

nies of their church in long black robes, and showed their paintings 
and sculptured images, which the savages viewed with superstitious 
awe. Added to all this, they practiced all the offices of kindness 
and sympathy for the sick, and held up the crucifix to the fading 
vision of many a dying neophyte." * 

But the French had but partial success with the proud, warlike, 
self-dependent Iroquois. The relation between them and the Five 
Nations, was never one of perfect amity, though they were at 
times on good terms with the Senecas, and had missions and tra- 
ding establishments with the Onondagas. The acquaintance had 
an untoward commencement as we have seen. Champlain, in his 
unfortunate alliance with a foe of their own race, had shown them 
the use of fire-arms. The Dutch and English supplied them with 
the new weapons. It not only enabled them to push their conquests 
over the Indian nations of the west, but helped them to stand out 
against the French and resist their inroads into their territories. 
The Iroquois, from the first European advent to this country, did 
not view the visitors with favor. They seemed to have had a 
clearer view by far, than other Indian nations of North America, of 
the ultimate tendency of it, and its fatal result to their race. Their 
first position was one of independence; a refusal to be allies of 
either the French, Dutch or English: — " We may guide the English 
to our lakes. We are born free. We neither depend on Onnondio 
or CoRLEAR." This was the tone and bearing of a Seneca 
chief, in reply to some complaints of the French Governor, in 1684. 
But the Dutch, to secure their trade, aided them to arm against 
the French, and maintained for the period they held dominion upon 
the Hudson, with but slight exceptions, a friendly relation, which 
the English, their successsors, inherited, and by every means in 
their power, assiduously cultivated, for the two-fold purpose of 
securing their trade, and preventing French encroachments upon 
what they regarded English territory. "The Dutch" said they, 
"are our brethren; with them we keep but one council fire. We 
are united by a covenant chain. We have always been as one 
flesh. If the French come from Canada, we will join the Dutch 
nation and live or die with them. With the English and French 
the contest was for territorial dominion and Indian trade, and the 
English early saw the advantages that would accrue to them from 

* Historj' of Illinois. 



136 HISTORY OF THE 

keeping the Iroquois in close alliance. As the Iroquois were at 
war with almost all other Indian nations, those other nations saw 
their advantage in having the protection of the French, who lost no 
opportunity of impressing upon them exalted ideas of the power of 
their king and country, of their ability not only to stay the march 
of conquest of the Iroquois, — to throw a shield around those of 
their own race they had persecuted and oppressed; but also to 
humble the pretensions of the English. 

The Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas, who for a time had been 
influenced by the Jesuits, to occupy something like a neutral 
position, in 1689 met the governors of New York and Virginia at 
Albany, and pledged to them peace and alliance. "Although 
England and Prance for many years after, sought their alliance 
Mdth various success, when' the grand division of parties through- 
out Europe was effected, the Bourbons found in the Iroquois impla- 
cable opponents: and in the struggle that afterwards ensued 
between England and France, they were allies of the former, and 
their hunting grounds were transformed into battle fields. Wes- 
tern New York, it would seem, was severed from Canada by the 
valor of the Mohawks," * or rather the author should have said, it 
was never but partially under the dominion of France, for the 
reason that the Seneca Iroquois, whose territory it was, were never 
their allies; never acknowledged any French sovereignty. 

The Marquis d'ARGENSON was appointed Governor General of 
New France in 1658. The condition of the colony continued to 
be much depressed. In addition to the bad working of the colo- 
nial system under the auspices of the Company, the Iroquois grew 
more and more irreconcilable to French encroachment; more and 
more determined to uproot the French from this quarter of the 
continent. Hostile bands hung upon the borders of the French 
settlements upon the St. Lawrence. 

In 1661 the Governor was recalled on account of ill-health, and 
the Baron d'AvANoouR, a man of extraordinary energy, was 
appointed in his place. Encouraging the king by his representa- 
tions of the advantages in prospect in the new country, four 
hundred new troops were sent out. But for this timely assistance, 
it is supposed that the Iroquois would have executed their threat 
of an extermination of the French. 

* HistoiT of Illinois. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 137 

In 1664, the company of New France surrendered their charter. 
Its privileges were transferred to the Company of the West Indies, 
under whose auspices a better system of government was organ- 
ized. Reinforcements arrived from the West Indies, and a number 
of officers, to whom had been granted lands with the rights of 
seigneurs, settled in the colonies. Forts were erected on the 
principal streams in Canada, where it was thought necessary to 
keep the Iroquois in check. In 1668 the affairs of New France 
seemed much improved. Count Frontenac, a nobleman of 
distinguished family, a man of energy and arbitrary will, was soon 
after invested with the office of home administrator of the affairs 
of the French colonies. He made extraordinary efforts to 
develope the resources of the country, and build up the scattered 
colonial establishments. In 1683, however, such had been the 
slow progress, the untoward events in New France, the population 
did not exceed nine thousand. 

De la Barre was Governor General of New France in 1684. 
incensed at the Iroquois for favoring the English, and introducing 
parties of them to the borders of the lakes to trade with the 
Indians, he resolved upon gathering an army at Fort Frontenac, to 
intimidate them; to try peaceful negotiation with a large force to 
back him; and if that failed, to invade their country. For this 
purpose, all the disposable troops at Montreal, Quebec, Niagara, 
and the western posts, were ordered to rendezvous at Fort Fron- 
tenac. His whole force assembled there, was from seventeen to 
eighteen hundred, including four hundred Indian allies. It was in 
the month of August, during the prevalence of fevers that 
prevailed upon the borders of lake Ontario, which those of our 
own people who were pioneer settlers upon its southern shore, 
have had occasion to know something about;* the French soldiers 
were unacclimated, and the larger portion of them were confined 
to the hospital. In the crippled condition of his army, De la 
Barre concluded that he should be unable to effect any thing 
save by treaty. Despatching orders to Mons. Dulbut, who was 

* Our old resident physicians, who have had some experience in " lake fevers," will 
be amused at the theor)- of the disease, which La Hontan sajs, De la Barre's physician 
advanced: — It was, that the excessive heat of the season put the vapors, or exhalations 
into an over rapid motion; that the air was so over rarified that a sufficient quantity of 
it was not taken in; that the small quantity inhaled was loaded with insects and impure 
corpusculums, which the fatal necessity of respiration oblicred the victim to swallow, 
and that by this means, nature was put into disorder." The Baron adds, that the 
"system was too much upon the Iroquois strain." 



138 HISTORY OF THE 

advancing from Mackinaw with six hundred Frenchmen and 
Indians, to hasten his march, he embarked upon lake Ontario with 
his Indian allies, and such of his French soldiers as were able to 
join the expedition, and landed upon the southern shore of lake 
Ontario, at La Famine.* Col. Dongan, the English Governor of 
New York, apprised of the movement, had sent his Indian inter- 
preter to persuade the Five Nations not to treat with the French. 
De la Barre despatched Le Moine, who had much influence with 
the Iroquois, to bring with him some of their chief men. In a 
few days he returned, bringing with him Garangula, a noted 
Seneca chief, called by his people Haaskouan, accompanied by a 
train of thirty young warriors. As soon as the chief arrived, De 
la Barre sent him a present of bread and wine, and thirty salmon 
trout, '' which they fished in that place in 'such plenty, that they 
brought up a hundred at one cast of a net;" at the same time 
congratulating him on his arrival. La Hontan says, that De la 
Barre had taken the precaution of sending the sick back to the 
colony that the Iroquois might not perceive the weakness of his 
forces; instructing Le Moine to assure Garangula that the body 
of the army was left behind at Frontenac, and that the troops that 
he saw, were only the Governor's guards. " But unhappily one of 
the Iroquois, that had a smattering of the French tongue, having 
strolled in the night time towards our tents, overheard what was 
said, and so revealed the secret. The chief, after taking two days 
to rest and recruit himself, gave notice to De la Barre that he 
was ready for the interview.! 

The speeches that succeeded, which the author copies from a 
good English translation of La Hontan, will not only materi- 
ally aid the reader to understand the then existing relations of the 
French, Iroquois, and English, but furnish one of the earliest and 
best specimens of native eloquence, and the proud bearing and 
spirit of independence, of our wild and unschooled forest predeces- 
sors. 

De la Barre, through the interpreter Le Moine, said : — 

'' The King, my master, being informed that the five Iroquois 

* Or, Hungry Bay, so named at the time, from the stinted allowance of food which 
they had there. 

t La Hontan has a drawing of the interview between De la Barre and Garangula. 
De la Barre is in front of his camp, with the interpreter and his officers near him. 
" The Garangula " is in front of his thirty warriors, who sit in a half circle upon the 
ground. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 139 

nations have for a long time made infractions upon the measures of 
peace, ordered me to come hither with a guard, and to send Akou- 
esson to the canton of the Onnotagues, in order to an interview 
with their principal leaders in the neighborhood of my camp. This 
great monarch, means that you and I should smoke together in the 
great calumet of peace, with the proviso, that you engage in the 
name of the Tsonnontouans, Goyogouans, Onnotagues, Onnoyoutes, 
and Agnies, to make reparation to his subjects, and to be guilty of 
nothing for the future that may occasion a fatal rupture. 

"The Tsonnontouans, Goyogouans, Onnotagues, Onnoyoutes, and 
Agnies, * have stripped, robbed and abused all the forest rangers 
that travelled in the way of trade to the country of the lUinese, of 
the Oumamis, and of the several other nations who are my mas- 
ter's children. Now this usage being in high violation of the treaty 
of peace concluded with my predecessor,! I am commanded to 
demand reparation, and at the same time to declare that in case of 
their refusal to comply with my demands, or of relapsing into the 
like robberies, war is actually proclaimed. This makes my words 
good. [Giving a belt.] 

" The warriors of these Five Nations have introduced the 
EngUsh into the lakes belonging to the King my master, and into 
the country of those nations of whom my master is a father: — 
This they have done with a desire to ruin the commerce of his 
subjects, and to oblige those nations to depart from their due 
allegiance ; notwithstanding the remonstrances of the late Governor 
of New York, who saw through the danger that both they and the 
English exposed themselves to. At present, I am willing to forget 
those actions; but if ever you be guilty of the like for the future, I 
have express orders to declare war. This belt warrants my words. 
[ Giving a belt. ] 

" The same warriors have made several barbarous incursions 
upon the country of the Illinese and Oumamis. They have 
massacred men, women and children; they have took, bound, and 
carried off an indefinite number of the natives of those countries, 
who thought themselves secure in their villages in times of peace. 
These people are my master's children, and must therefore cease 
to be your slaves. I charge you to restore them to their liberty, 
and to send them home without delay; for if the Five Nations 
refuse to comply with this demand, I have express orders to declare 
war. This makes my words good. [Giving a belt. ] 

'• This is all I had to say to the Garangula, whom I desire to 
report to the Five Nations, this declaration, that my master 
commanded me to make. He wishes they had not obliged him to 



* Seuecas, Cayugas, Oiieidas, Onondagas, and Mohawks. 

\ The predecessor of De la Barre had concluded a treaty of peace with the Iroquois, 
which was of short duration. 



140 HISTORY OF THE 

send a potent army to the Fort of Cataracony, * in order to carry 
on a war that will prove fatal to them; and he will be very 
much troubled if it so falls out, that this fort, which is a work of 
peace, must be employed for a prison to your militia. These 
mischiefs ought to be prevented by mutual endeavors: — The 
French, who are the brethren and friends of the Five Nations, will 
never disturb their repose, provided they make the satisfaction I 
now demand, and prove religious observers of their treaties. I 
wish my words may produce the desired effect; for if they do not, 
I am obliged to join the Governor of New York, who has orders 
from the king his master, to assist me to burn the villages and cut 
you off. t This confirms my words. [Giving a belt.] 

La HoNTAN says: — "While De La Barre's interpreter pro- 
nounced this harangue, the Garangula did nothing but look upon 
the end of his pipe. After the speech was finished, he rose, and 
having took five or six turns in the ring that the French and the 
savages made, he returned to his place, and standing upright, spoke 
after the following manner to the general, (De La Barre,) who 
sat in his chair of state." 

"YoNNONDio!| I honor you, and all the warriors that accompany 
me do the same. Your interpreter has made an end of his dis- 
course, and now I come to begin mine. My voice glides to my ear, 
pray listen to my words. 

"YoNNONDio! In setting out from Quebec you must needs have 
fancied that the scorching beams of the sun had burnt down the 
forests that render our country inaccessible to the French; or else, 
that the inundations of the lake had surrounded our castles, and 
confined us* as prisoners. This certainly was your thought; and it 
could be nothing else than the curiosity of seeing a burnt or 
drowned country, that moved you to take a journey hither. But 
now you have an opportunity of being undeceived, for I, and my 
warlike retinue come to assure you that the Tsonnontouans, Goyo- 
guans, Onnotagues, Onnoyoutes and Jlgnies, are not yet destroyed. 
I return you thanks in their name, for bringing into the country 
the calumet of peace, that your predecessors received at their 
hands. At the same time I congratulate your happiness, in 
having left underground the bloody axe that has so often been dyed 
with the blood of the French. Hear, Yonnondio! I am not asleep; 
my eyes are open; and the sun that vouchsafes the light 'gives me 
a clear view of a great captain at the head of a troop of soldiers. 
who speaks as if he were asleep. He pretends that he does not 
approach to this lake with any other view than to smoke with the 

* The Indian name of Fort Frontenac, and lake Ontario. 

t De la Barre seems to have been ignorant of the fact, that the English governor had 
been persuading the Iroquois to stand out against French diplomacy. 

X The Iroquois called the Governor of Ne\v France, whoever he might be, Yonnondio, 
and the Dutch or English Governor, Corlear. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 141 

Onnotagues in the great calumet; but the Garangula knows better 
thuigs; he sees plainly that the Yonnondio mean'd to knock 'enti 
on the head if the French arms had not been so much weakened. 

"I perceive that the Yonnondio raves in a camp of sick people 
whose lives the Great Spirit has saved, by visiting them with infirmi- 
ties. Do you hear Yonnondio? Our women had taken up their 
clubs, and the children and the old men had visited your camp with 
their bows and arrows, if our warlike men had not stopped and 
disarmed them, when Jlkouessan, your ambassador, appeared before 
my village. But I have done, I will talk no more of that. 

•'You must know, Yonnondio, that we have robbed no French- 
men but those who supplied the Illinese and the Oumamis, (our 
enemies,) with fusees, with powder and with ball. These indeed 
we took care of, because such arms might have cost us our life. 
Our conduct in that point, is of a piece with that of the Jesuits, 
who stave all the barrels of brandy that are brought to our cantons, 
lest the people getting drunk, should knock them on the head. 
Our warriors have no beavers to give in exchange for all the arms 
they have taken from the French; and as for the people, they do 
not think of bearing arms. This comprehends my words. [Giving 
a belt.] 

''We have conducted the English to our lakes in order to traffic 
with the, Outaouas, and the Hurons; just as the Jllgonkins con- 
ducted the French to our cantons in order to carry on a commerce 
that the English lay claim to as their right. We are born 
freemen, and have no dependence either on the Yonnondio or the 
CoRLEAR. We have a power to go when we please, to conduct 
those w^hom we will to the places we resort to, and to buy or sell 
where we see fit. If your allies are your slaves or your children, 
you may e'en treat 'em as such, and rob 'em of the liberty of 
entertaining any other nation but your own. This contains my 
words. [Giving a belt.] 

•'W^e fell upon the Illinese and the Oumamis because they cut 
down the tree of peace that served as limits, or boundaries to our 
positions. They came to hunt beavers upon our lands, and 
contrary to the custom of all the savages, have carried off whole 
stocks, both male and female.* They have engaged the Chaou- 
anoiis in their interest, and entertained them in their country. 
They supplied 'cm with fire-arms after the concerting of ill designs 
against us. We have done less than the English and the French, 
who, without any right, have usurped the grounds they are now 
possessed of; and of which they have dislodged several nations, in 
order to make way for their building of cities, villages and forts. 
This, CoRLEAR, contains my words. [Giving a belt.] 

"I give to you to know, Yonnondio, that my voice is the voice 

* The Indians regarded it a great offence to wholly exterminate a beaver colony. 



142 HISTORY OF THE 

of the Five Iroquese cantons. This is their answer; pray incline 
your ear and hsten to what they represent. 

"The Tsonnontouans, Goyogouans, Onnotagues,'0nnoyoutes, and 
Jlgnies, declare that they interred the axe at Cataracouy, in the 
presence of your predecessor, in the very center of the Ibrt; and 
planted the tree of peace in the same place that it might be pre- 
served; that 'twas then agreed that the fort should be used as a 
place of retreat for merchants, and not a refuge for soldiers; and 
that instead of arms and ammunition, it should be made a recep- 
tacle only of beaver skins and merchandise goods. Be it known 
to you, YoNNONDio, that for the future you ought to take care 
that so great a number of martial men as I now see, being shut up 
in so small a place, do not stifle and choak the tree of peace. 
Since it took root so easily, it must needs be of pernicious conse- 
quence to stop its growth, and hinder it to shade both your country 
and ours with its leaves. I do assure you, in the name of the 
Five Nations, that our warriors shall dance the calumet dance 
under its branches; that they shall rest in tranquility upon their 
matts and will never dig up the axe to cut down the tree of peace; 
till such times as the Yonnondio and the Cori,ear do either jointly 
or separately offer to invade the country that the Great Spirit has 
disposed of in the favor of our ancestors. This belt preserves my 
words, and this other, the authority which the Five Nations have 
given me." [Giving two belts.] 

Then, Garangula. addi'cssing himself to the interpreter Le 
MoiNE, said: — 

'■'■ JViouRssan, take heart; you are a man of sense; speak and 
explain my meaning; be sure you forget nothing, but declare all 
that thy brethren and thy friends represent to thy chief Yonnondio, 
by the voice of the Garangula, who pays you all honor and 
respect, and invites you to accept of this present of beavers, and 
to assist at his feast immediately. This other present of beavers 
is sent by the Five Nations to the Yonnondio.'" 

When the Iroquois chief had finished his speech, Dc la Barre 
" returned to his tent much enraged at what he had heard." The 
Garangula prepared his feast, several of the French officers 
becoming his guests. Two days afterwards he returned to his 
people. 

The army of De la Barre broke up, that part of it belonging 
at Quebec and Montreal, going down the St Lawrence; those 
belonging to Fort Frontenac and the western posts returning some 
by water and some by land. " Thus a very chargeable and 
fatiguing expedition (which was to strike the terror of the French 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 143 

name, into the stubborn hearts of the Five Nations,) ended in a 
scold between the French General and an old Indian."* 



EXPEDITION OF DE NONVILLE AGAINST THE SENEGAS IN 1687 



The Marquis de Nonville, a colonel in the French dragoons, 
succeeded De la Barre in the local government of New France, 
in 1685. Charlevoix says he was "equally esteemed for his 
valor, his wisdom, and his piety." At the commencement of his 
administration, the Iroquois had renewed their wars against Indian 
nations at the west, with whom the French were in alliance, and 
continued, as Garangula had assured De la Barre they would, to 
introduce the English around the borders of the lakes.f De 
Nonville brought out with him a large reinforcement for the 
army, and at once resolved upon a series of measures having in 
view the humbling of the Iroquois by making them allies or 
neutrals and the security of the French dominion and trade upon 
the Lakes. Prominent in these measures, was a formidable attack 
upon the Senecas, who, from their location and partiality for the 
English, were most in the way of the French interests; and the 
building of a fort at Niagara. His first steps were to accumulate 
ample provisions for his army at Fort Frontenac, and gather the 
whole disposable military force of New France, at Montreal. 
The commandants of the French posts at the west, w^ere ordered 
to rendezvous at Niagara with their troops, and the warriors of 
their Indian allies in that quarter. 

At this period, England and France were at peace, or rather a 
treaty had been signed between them, to the effect that whatever 
differences might arise at home or elsewhere, neutral relations 



* Colden's History of the Five Nations. Mr. Clinton, in his discourse before the 
New York Historical Society in 1811, says of the speech of Garangula: — "I believe it 
to be impossible to find, in all the effusions of ancient or modern oratory, a speech 
more appropriate or convincing. Under the veil of respectful profession, it conveys 
the most biting irony; and while it abounds with rich and splendid imagery, it contains 
the most solid reasoning. I place it in the same rank of the celebrated speech of 
Logan; and I cannot but express my astonishment at the conduct of two respectable 
writers who have represented this interesting interview, and this sublime display of 
intellectual power, as a "scold between the French General and an old Indian." 

t It should be observed here, that the English claimed dominion over all the countr)- 
of the Iroquois south of the lakes, including of course the site of Fort Niagara. The 
French claimed the Iroquois' country, from priority of discovery and occupation by the 
Jesuits, La Salle, &c. 



I'M HISTORY OF THE 

should be observed by their subjects in North America. The 
Iroquois, apprised by the movements of De Nonville, but not 
knowing where he intended to strike, communicated their appre- 
hensions to Governor Dongan, who immediately wrote to De 
Nonville that the great collection of supplies at Fort Frontenac 
convinced him that an attack was meditated upon the Iroquois; — 
that they were the subjects of the crown of England, and any 
injury to them, would be an open infraction of the peace which 
existed between them and their two kings. He also stated that he 
understood the French intended to build a fort at Niagara, which 
astonished him exceedingly, as "no one could be ignorant, that it 
lay within the jurisdiction of New York." De Nonville replied 
that the Iroquois feared chastisement because they deserved it; and 
dissimulating, endeavored to convey the impression that no more 
supplies were ordered to Frontenac than were necessary for the 
use of the troops stationed there. He said that the pretensions of 
England to the land of the Iroquois were unfounded, as the French 
had taken possession of them -'long before there was an English- 
man in New York;" at the same time admonishing the English 
governor that while their kings and masters were living in perfect 
peace and amity, it would be unwise for their lieutenant generals 
to embroil themselves in war. Governor Dongan took no measures 
to counteract the designs of the French, but to confirm the Iroquois 
in their apprehensions, and supply them with arms and ammuni- 
tion; but while the French preparations for war were going- on, 
the English were sending trading parties to the Lakes, and assid- 
uously impi'oving a slight foot-hold they had obtained among a 
few Indian nations that were inclining to their interests. The 
English used one weapon, almost as potent — (in some instances 
more so,) — as Jesuit influence, and insinuating French diplomacy. 
They had learned the fatal appetite of the Indian for strong drink, 
and took advantage of it, by introducing brandy and rum wherever 
they made their advances among them. The Jesuit priests kept 
up a continual warfare with the French traders, against the 
introduction of intoxicating liquors, and generally prevailed. The 
Catholic church had, at that early period, their Father Matthews 
in this far off wilderness. And here it is no falsifying of historical 
record, to add, that generally, the French policy and conduct, 
looked far more to the ultimate good of the natives, than those of 
the English. The presence of the Jesuit missionary, modified and 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 145 

checked the sordid desire of gain with the trader. English 
cupidity had no such check. 

De Nonville employed the winter of 1687 in making ready for 
the expedition. The previous summer, as he says in his journal, 
was passed in negotiations, which terminated in an agreement that 
both parties should meet at Fort Frontenac to take measures for 
the conclusion of a general peace. " But the pride of that nation, 
(the Iroquois,) accustomed to see others yield to its tyranny, and 
the insults which they have continued to heap upon the French 
and our savage allies, have induced us to beheve that there is no 
use in negotiating with them, but with arms in our hands, and we 
have all winter been preparing to make them a visit.'' 

The French army, consisting of about sixteen hundred men, 
accompanied by four hundred Indian allies, set out from Montreal 
on the 13th of June, in three hundred and fifty batteaux, and after 
a slow passage up the St. Lawrence, encountering many difficulties, 
arrived at Fort Frontenac on the 30th. On the 4th day of July, 
it started for its destination; taking the route by the way of La 
Famine Bay, and coasting along the south side of lake Ontario, 
encamping upon the shore each night, arrived at Ganniagataronta- 
goiiat,^ on the 10th. Previous to leaving Fort Frontenac, De 
Nonville had despatched orders to the commandant at Niagara 
to meet him with his troops, and the French and Indian allies who 
had come down from the west. This reinforcement amounted to 
about five hundred and eighty French and Indians. The two 
divisions of the army met at Irondequoit within the same hour. 

The next day was employed in constructing pallisades, facines 
and pickets for the protection of provisions, batteaux and canoes. 
On the 12th, after detaching four hundred men to garrison their 
landing place, the French and Indians took up their line of march 
toward the villages of the Senecas. Passing up the east side of 
Irondequoit Bay, they encamped at night, a few miles above its 
head, near the village of Pittsford. The Indian village of Ganna- 
garo, which was situated near the present village of Victor, Ontario 
county, was to be the first point of attack. Continuing their 
march on the 13th, they arrived about 3 o'clock, at a defile near 



* Irondequoit. The name given above, is the one by which the French designated 
it, and was borrowed from the Mohawks. The Seneca name is Ongiudaondagwat. 

10 



<f^,l 



146 HISTORY OF THE 

the Indian village, when they were attacked by a large party of 
Senecas, that lay in ambush: — 

" They were better received than they anticipated, and were 
thrown into such consternation that most of them threw away their 
guns and clothing to escape under favor of the woods. The action 
was not long, but there was heavy firing on both sides. The 
three companies of Ottawas who were stationed on the right, dis- 
tinguished themselves, and all our christian savages farther in the 
rear, performed their duty admirably, and firmly maintained the 
position which had been assigned to them on the left. As we had 
in our front a dense wood, and a brook bordered with thickets, 
and had made no prisoners that could tell us positively the number 
of Indians that had attacked us ; the fatigues of the march, which 
our troops, as well the French as the Savages, had undergone, left 
us in no condition to pursue the enemy. They had fled beyond 
where we had sufficient knowledge of the paths, to be certain 
which we should take to lead us from the woods into the plain. 
The enemy left twenty-seven dead on the field to our knowledge, 
besides a much larger number of wounded, judging from the traces 
of blood which we saw. We learned from one of the dying that 
they had more than eight hundred men under arms, either in the 
action or in the village, and were daily expecting assistance from 
the neighboring Iroquois, Our troops being much fatigued, we 
rested during the remainder of the day at the same place, where 
we found sufficient water for the night. We maintained a strict 
watch, waiting for day, in order to enter the plain, which is about 
a league in extent, before proceeding to the village. 

" The next day, which was the 14th, a heavy rain, which lasted 
till noon, compelled us to remain until that time at the place where 
the battle occured. We set out in battle array, thinking the enemy 
entrenched in the new village, which is above the old. In the 
mean time we entered the plain without seeing any thing but the 
relics of the fugitives. We found the old village burnt by the? 
enemy, and the entrenchments of the new deserted, which were 
distant from the old about three-quarters of a league. We 
encamped on the height of the plain, and did nothing this day but 
protect ourselves from the rain which continued until night." * 

Two old men who had been left by the Senecas in their retreat, 
told De Nonville that the ambuscade consisted of two hundred 
and twenty men stationed on the hill side to attack the French in 
the rear, and five hundred and thirty in front; and beside this, 



* De Nonville's Journal. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 147 

there were three hundred in their fort, situated on a very advanta- 
geous height : that there were none but Senecas in the battle 
the Cayuga and Onondaga warriors not having arrived. 

The Senecas setting fire to all their villages, retreated before 
the French army, and sought refuge among the Cayugas. The 
French army remained in the Seneca country until the 24th. The 
deserted villages were entered, large quantities of com and beans 
destroyed; the Indian allies scouting the country and tomahawk- 
ing and scalping such straggling Senecas as fell behind in the 
flight, or remained in consequence of infirmity. Such was the 
spirit of the western Indians, and determination to execute ven- 
geance upon those who had so often warred upon them, that the 
French could not induce them to save such prisoners as fell into 
their hands. 

De Nonville estimates the amount of corn destroyed in all the 
" four villages of the Sbnnontouans,''^ 1,200,000 bushels! A great 
exaggeration, undoubtedly, as the Senecas were never sufficiently 
numerous nor agricultural, to warrant the conclusion that they had 
any thing approaching to that amount in all their territory. He 
was making a report to "the king his master," and it is quite likely 
made his exploits as formidable as possible. He differs materially 
in his account of the expedition from Baron La Hontan who was 
one of his officers. 

La Hontan's account of the invasion of the Seneca country 
is as follows: 

*'0n the third day of July, 1687, we embarked from Fort 
Frontenac, to coast along the southern shore, under favor of the 
calms which prevail in that month, and at the same time the Sieur 
de La Foret left for Niagara by the north side of the lake, to 
wait there for a considerable reinforcement. 

" By extraordinary good fortune we both arrived on the same 
day, and nearly the same hour, at the river of the Tsonnontouans, 
by reason of which our savage allies, who draw predictions from 
the merest trifles, foretold, with their usual superstition, that so 
punctual a meeting infallibly indicated the total destruction of the 
Iroquois. How they deceived themselves the sequel will show. 

"The same evening on which we landed, we commenced draw- 
ing our canoes and batteaux upon land, and protected them by a 
strong guard. We afterwards set about constructing a fort of 
stakes, in which four hundred men were stationed, under the com- 
mand of the Sieur Dorvilliers, to guard the boats and baggage. 

"The next day a young Canadian, named La Fontaine 



148 HISTORY OF THE 

Marion, was unjustly put to death. The following is his history: 
This poor unfortunate became acquainted with the country and 
savages of Canada by the numerous voyages he made over the 
continent, and after having rendered his King good service, asked 
permission of several of the Governors general to continue his 
travels in further prosecution of his petty traffic, but he could 
never obtain it. He then determined to go to New England, as 
war did not then exist between the tw^o Crowns. He was very 
well received, on account of his enterprise and acquaintance with 
nearly all the Indian languages. It was proposed that he should 
pilot through the lakes, those two companies of English which 
have since been captured. He agreed to do so, and was unfor- 
tunately taken with the rest. 

"The injustice of which they were guilty, appears to me inex- 
cusable, for we were at peace with the English, besides which 
they claim that the Lakes of Canada belong to them. 

"On the following day we set out for the great village of the 
Tsonnontouans, without any other provisions than the ten biscuit 
which each man Avas compelled to carry for himself. We had but 
seven leagues to march, through immense forests of lofty trees and 
over a very level country. The Ooureurs de bois formed the 
vanguard, with a part of the savages, the remainder of which 
brought up the rear — the regulars and militia being in the center. 

"The first day, our scouts marched in advance without making 
any discoveries. The distance which we accomplished was four 
leagues. On the second day the same scouts took the lead, and 
advanced even to the fields of the village, without perceiving any 
one, although they passed within pistol shot of five hundred 
Tsonnontouans lying on their bellies, who suffered them to pass 
and repass without interruption. 

"On receiving their report, we marched in great haste and little 
order, believing that as the Iroquois had fled, we could at least 
capture their women, children and old men. But when we arrived 
at the foot of the hill on which they lay in ambush, distant about a 
quarter of a league from the village, they began to utter their 
ordinary cries, followed with a discharge of musketry. 

"If you had seen, sir, the disorder into which our militia and 
regulars were thrown, among the dense woods, you would agree 
with me, that it would require many thousand Europeans to make 
head against these barbarians. 

"Our battalions were immediately separated into platoons, which 
ran without order, pell mell, to the right and left, without knowing 
whither they went. Instead of firing upon the Iroquois, we fired 
upon each other. It was in vain to call ^ help, soldiers of such a 
battalion,^ for we could scarcely see thirty paces. In short we 
were so disordered, that the enemy were about to fall upon us, 
club in hand, when our savages having rallied, repulsed and pursued 
them so closely, even to their villages, that they killed more than 



1 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 1 10 

eighty, the heads of which they brought away, not counting the 
wounded who escaped. 

"■ We lost on this one occasion ten savages and a hundred French- 
men; we had twenty or twenty-two wounded, among whom was 
the good Father Angklran, the Jesuit, who was shot in those 
parts of which Origen wished to deprive himself, that he might 
instruct the fair sex with less scandal. 

''When the savages brought the heads to M. De Nonville, 
they inquired why he halted instead of advancing. He replied 
that he could not leave his wounded, and to afiord his surgeons 
time to care for them, he had thought proper to encamp. They 
proposed making litters to carry them to the village, which was 
near at hand. The general being unwilling to follow this advice, 
endeavored to make them listen to reason, but in place of hearing 
him, they reassembled, and having held a council among them- 
selves, although they were more than ten different nations, they 
resolved to go alone in pursuit of the fugitives, of whom they 
expected to capture at least the women, children, and old men, 

"When they were ready to march, M. De Nonville exhorted 
them not to leave him or depart from his camp, but rest for one 
day, and that the next day he would go and burn the villages of 
the enemy, and lay waste their fields, in consequence of which 
they would perish by famine. This offended them so much that 
the greater part returned to their country, saying that 'the French 
had come for an excursion rather than to carry on war, since they 
would not profit by the finest opportunity in the world; that their 
ardor was like a sudden flash, extinguished as soon as kindled; that 
it seemed useless to have brought so many warriors from all parts 
to burn bark cabins, which could be rebuilt in four days; that the 
Tsonnontouans would care but little if their Indian corn was 
destroyed, since the other Iroquois nations had sufficient to afford 
them a part; that finally, after having joined the Governors of 
Canada to no purpose, they would never trust them in future, 
notwithstanding any promises they might make.' 

" Some say that M. De Nonville should have gone farther, 
others think it was impossible for him to do better. I will not 
venture to decide between them. Those at the helm are often the 
most embarrassed. However, we marched the next day to the 
great village, carrying our wounded on litters, but found nothing 
but ashes, the Iroquois having taken the precaution to burn it 
themselves. We were occupied five or six days in cutting down 
Indian corn in the fields with our swords. From thence we passed 
to the two small villages of The-ga-ron-hies and Da-non-ca-ri- 
ta-oui, distant two or three leagues from the former, where we 
performed the same exploits, and then returned to the borders of 
the lake. We found in all these villages, horses, cattle, poultry, 
and a multitude of swine. The country which we saw is the 



150 HISTORY OF THE 

most beautiful, level and charming in the world. The woods we 
traversed abounded in oak, walnut and wild chestnut trees." 

CoLDEN, the historian of the Iroquois, says that five hundred 
of the Senecas lay in ambush; that they "lay on their bellies and 
let the French scouts pass and repass without disturbing them;" 
but that when the main body of the army came up " the Senekas 
suddenly raised the war shout, with a discharge of their fire arms. 
This put the regular troops, as well as the militia, into such a fright, 
as they marched through the woods, that the battalions immediately 
divided and ran to the right and the left, and in the confusion fired 
upon one another. When the Senekas perceived their disorder 
they fell in upon them pell mell, till the French Indians, more used 
to such mode of fighting, gathered together and repulsed the 
Senekas. There were, (according to the French accounts,) a hun- 
dred Frenchmen, ten French Indians, and about four score Senekas 
killed in the rencounter. Monsieur De Nonville was so dispirited 
with the fright that his men had been put into that his Indians 
could not persuade him to pursue. He halted the remainder of the 
day. The next day he marched on with a design to burn the 
village, but when he came there he found that the Senekas had 
saved him the trouble ; for they had laid all in ashes before they 
retired. The French stayed five or six days to destroy the corn, 
and then marched to two other villages, at two or three leagues 
distance. After they had performed the like exploits in tnese 
places, they returned to the banks of the lake." 

There are some traditions among the Senecas, in reference to 
De Nonville's expedition which are worthy of note: — William 
Jones, a native Seneca, who married a relative of Red Jacket, 
states that he has heard the chief often say, that when he was a 
boy he used to hear the old men speak of a large party of French 
soldiers who penetrated the Indian country along the Genesee to a 
place called in the Seneca language, Sgohsaisthah. He did not 
admit that the Indians suflTered any serious defeat. 

John Blacksmith, a chief of the Senecas, residing on the 
Tonawanda Reservation, hunted in his youth over the country 
embraced in the counties of Monroe, Livingston and Ontario, and 
thus acquired an intimate knowledge of old Indian localities. He 
was asked if he had ever heard that a French army penetrated the 
Seneca country in olden time] He related the following tradi- 
tion: — 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 151 

"About four generations ago, a French army landed secretly 
and unexpectedly at a place called by the Senecas, Gannyeodathah, 
which is a short distance from the head of Onyiudaondagwat, or 
Irondequoit Bay, as it is called by the whites. They immediately 
marched into the interior towards the ancient village of the 
Senecas, called Gaosaehgaah, following the main beaten path 
which led to that place. 

" As soon as the Indians residing at the village, received intelli- 
gence of their approach, they sent news to the neighboring town 
of Gahayanduk. On being reinforced by them, they met the 
French as they advanced towards the former village, and a severe 
battle ensued. On account of their inferior numbers, the Indians 
were defeated, and fled to a village then located near the foot of 
Canandaigua lake. The French advanced, burned the village, and 
laid waste the adjacent corn fields. As soon as they had accom- 
plished the above object, they retraced their steps towards the 
landing. Runners having been despatched by the Senecas to their 
principal towns, to give notice of the presence of the enemy, a 
large force was soon collected to defend the village and capture 
the French. When they reached Gaosaehgaah, nothing remained 
of that village but its smoking ruins. They immediately pursued 
the French, and arrived at the Bay a short time too late. The 
place where the battle occurred, was near a small stream with a 
hill on one side, and was known to the Senecas by the name of 
Dyagodiyu, or the ' place of a battle.' " 

The four Indian villages which De Nonville visited, are sup- 
posed to have been situated as follows : — Gannagaro, as the French 
called it, Gaosaehgaah in Seneca, was upon Boughton's Hill, in 
Victor, Ontario county; — Gannogarae, in the town of East Bloom- 
field, about three and a half miles from Boughton's Hill, near 
where the old Indian trail crossed Mud Creek; Totiakto, Deyudi- 
haakdoh in Seneca, was the north-east bend of the Honeoye outlet, 
near West Mendon, in Monroe county; — Gannounata, in Seneca 
Dyudonsot, about two miles south-east of East Avon, at the source of 
a small stream which empties into the Conesus, near Avon Springs. 

The precise place where the battle occurred is a short distance 
north-west of the village of Victor, on the north-eastern edge of a 
large swamp, and on the northerly side of a stream called Great 
Brook. On the first settlement of the country it was partly 
covered with a thick growth of timber, and dense underbrush, 
forming a very advantageous place for an Indian ambuscade. It 
is about a mile and a quarter north-west of the old Indian village 
on Boughton's Hill, called by De Nonville, Gannagaro. 



l§3 HISTORY OF THE 

The height on which the Fort mentioned by De Nonville 
was located, is about a mile and a quarter westerly from the site 
of Gannagaro, a wide valley intervening. It is now known as 
Fort Hill. Although nearly defaced by the plough, the works can 
be traced with sufficient certainty to identify the spot; and the 
solitary spring that supplied the French army, still oozes from the 
declivity of a hill, an existing witness of the locality. There are 
indications of extensive Indian settlements in the neighborhood of 
Victor, within a circuit of three miles. Thousands of graves were 
to be seen by the pioneer settlers, and the old French axes supplied 
them with iron when it was difficult to obtain it from other sources. 
At an early period the old Indian trail pursued by De Nonville 
from Irondequoit Bay to Victor, was distinctly visible. The forti- 
fication that De Nonville made, in which he left a detachment 
of his army to guard his stores and bateaux, at the bay, was 
described to the author during the last summer, by Oliver Culver 
of Brighton, who was in the country as early as 1796. French 
axes, flints, &c. were plenty there at that early period of settlement. 

The author is indebted to George Hosmer, of Avon, for the 
following account of a relic which unquestionably belongs to the 
period of the French invasion of the Seneca Iroquois: — 

"In the spring of 1793, I was present, when in ploughing a piece 
of new land on the Genesee bottom, near the river, on a farm then 
owned by my father, the plough passed through a bed of ashes 
several inches in thickness, and near that turned up an instrument 
which was called a French couteau. The blade was about twenty 
inches in length, and three inches wide. It was covered with rust, 
which upon being scoured off, exhibited the Jleu?- de lis and armorial 
bearings of France, and a date referring to the age and reign of 
Louis XIV. The relic elicited a momentary attention. It was 
cleared of rust, ground to an edge, and used in my father's kitchen 
as a cleaver. The haft was eight or ten inches long, and made of 
buckhorn, or bone. I was then but a boy, but in after years have 
often regretted that it had not been preserved with care, as an item 
of evidence to illustrate the early history of the country." 

The author indulges in a feeling of local pride, in noticing, in this 
connection, the poem, * " Yonnondio,^'' founded upon the advent of 
De Nonville to the valley of the Genesee, once the favorite home 



* " Yonnondio, or the Warriors of the Genesee : — a tale of the seventeenth century. 
Bv Wm. H. C. Hosmer." 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 153 

of the Seneca Iroquois, as it is now, that of a prosperous and happy 
people of our own race. It is a "woof of fiction, woven upon a 
warp of fact." The author is of pioneer stock, as the reader will 
learn in some subsequent portions of this work; born and reared in 
the " realm of the Senecas," a remnant of that noble race of men 
associated with his earliest recollections; the tales of his nursery 
were of them, " their eloquence and deeds of valor;" and going out 
in manhood, wandering in the peaceful vale that echoed their war 
shouts, inspired by the reminiscences with which he was surrounded; 
he has seized the lyre, and in its silver tones are beautifully blended 
the facts and the romance of local history. It is replete with more 
striking and truthful delineations of the red man and his character, 
than any other poem upon the same subject, extant. 

As a specimen of this first successful essay to mingle the charms 
of verse with the local history of our region; and in fact, as a help 
to the better understanding of the causes that induced the invasion 
of De Nonville, and the spirit, the proud and haughty bearing of 
the Senecas in resisting it; the author selects some of the 
concluding portions of the speech that the poet attributes to 
Cannehoot, a Seneca chief, who is supposed to be closing a 
council of war, preparatory to the fierce onslaught that the undis- 
ciplined soldiers of the forest made upon the ranks of the French 
invaders: — 

" Regardless of our ancient fame. 
Our conquests, and our dreaded name, 
Fierce Yonnondio and his band 
Are thronging in our forest land; 
And ask ye why with banner spread 
His force the Frank hath hither led 1 
We scorched with fire the skulking hounds. 
Who dared to cross our hunting grounds, 
A trading, base, dishonest band. 
Who in exchange for pelts had given 
Guns, lead, and black explosive sand. 

To tribes our power had western driven:"* 



•' Shall warriors who have tamed the pride 

Of rival nations far and wide, 

At their own hearths be thus defied ? 

Shall it be said the beast of prey 

His den abandoned far away. 



* See speech of De la Barre, and Garaugula's reply- 



154 HISTORY OF THE 

And, seeking out the hunter, found 
His aim less true, less deep the wound ? 
Shall it be told in other days, 
The tomahawk we feared to raise, 
While the green hillocks, where repose 
The cherished dust of woodland-kings 
Insulted by the march of foes. 

Gave hack indignant echoings ? 
Base is the bosom that will quake 
With one degrading throb of fear. 
When fame and country are at stake, 
Though an armed troop of fiends are near! 
Oh! never can such craven tread 
The happy chase grounds of the dead; 
Between him and that fount of bUss 
Will yawn a deep and dread abyss; 
And doomed will be his troubled ghost 
To range that land forever more. 
Upon whose lone and barren coast, 
The black and bitter waters roar. 
The clime of everlasting day. 
Where groves, all red with fruitage, wave, 
And beauty never fades away. 
Is only trodden by the brave." 

****** 

" In answer to the bold harangue. 
Each warrior from his bear-skin sprang. 
And, ominous of coming strife. 
Clashed tomahawk and scalping knife. 
A signal by the chief was made. 
To close the council, and obeyed: 
His eloquence of look and word. 
Dark depths of every heart had stirred." 

Before leaving the Seneca country De Nonville made the 
following " proems verbal," of the act of taking possession: — 

"On the 19th day of July, in the year 1687, the troops commanded by the Honorable 
Rene de Brisay, Chevalier, Seigneur Marquis of De Nonville and other places. 
Governor and Lieutenant General for the King in the whole extent of Canada, and 
country of New France, in presence of Hector, Chevalier de Calliere, Governor of 
Montreal in said country, commanding the camp under his orders, and of Philip de 
RiGAND, Chevalier de Vaudreuil, commanding the troops of the King, which being 
drawn up in battle array, there appeared at the head of the army, Charles Aubert, 
Sieur de la Chenays, citizen of Quebec, deputed by the Honorable Jean Bochart, 
Chevalier, Seigneur de Champigny, Horoy, Verneuil and other places, Counsellor of 
the King in his councils, Intendant of Justice, Police and Finances in all Northern 
France, who asserted and declared, that at the requisition of the said Seigneur de 
Champigny, he did take possession of the village of Totiakton, as he had done of the 
three villages named Gannagaro, Gannondata, and Gannongarae, and of a fort distant 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 155 

half a league from the said village of Gannagaro, together with all the lands which are 
in their vicinity, however far they extend, conquered in the name of his Majesty; and 
as evidence thereof has planted in all the said villages and forts, the arras of his said 
Majesty, and has proclaimed in a loud voice, "vive leroi," after the said troops have 
vanquished and put to flight eight hundred Iroquois Tsonnontouans, and have laid 
waste, burnt and destroyed their provisions and cabins. And on account of the fore- 
going, the Sieur de la Chenays Aubert, has required evidence to be granted to him 
by me, Paul Dqpuy, Esquire, Counsellor of the King, and his Attorney at the Court 
of the Provost of Quebec. 

" Done at the said village of Totiakton, the largest village of the Tsonnontouans, in 
presence of the Reverend Father Vaillant, Jesuit, and of the officers of the regulars 
and militia, witnesses with me the said attorney of the King. Subscribed the day and 
year above mentioned, and signed in the original by Charles Aubert de la Chenays, 
J. Rene de Brisay, Monsieur de De Nonville, Le Chevalier de Calliere, Fleutelot de 
Romprey, de Desmeloizes, de Ramezay, Francois Vaillant of the Company of Jesus, 
de Grandeville, de Longueil, Saint Paul and Dupuy. 

" Compared with the original remaining in my hands, by me, the undersigned, 
Counsellor, Secretary of his Majesty, and chief Register of the Sovereign Council of 
Quebec." 

Signed, PENURET." 

The fair inference, from all the evidence that has been preserved 
is that the French gained Uttle honor, and less advantage, by this 
rencounter. Golden says, " the French got nothing but dry 
blows by this expedition." 

After despatching one of the bateaux to Fort Frontenac, to 
carry the news of the result of the expedition, the whole army 
set sail for Niagara on the 26th, adverse winds delaying its arrival 
there until the morning of the 30th. '* We immediately, (says 
the journal of De Nonville), set about choosing a place, and 
collecting stakes for the construction of a fort which I had resolved 
to build at the extremity of a tongue of land between the river 
Niagara, and lake Ontario, on the Iroquois side.* In three days 
the army had so fortified the post as to put it in a good condition 
of defence, in case of an assault. De Nonville says his object 
in constructing the fortification, was to afford protection for their 
Indian allies, and enable them to continue in small detachments, 
the war against the Iroquois. A detachment of an hundred 



* It is remarked by Mr. Marshall, in a note accompanying his translation of De 
Nonville's journal, that the geographical designation given here "removes all doubt as 
to the original location of this fortress." The circumstance of Joncaire persuading the 
Senecas to permit him to fix his residence "in the midst of a group of cabins at 
Lewiston," has undoubtedly led some historians to conclude that it was originally the 
site of the Fort. La Hontan, writing from the spot, while the fort was building, says: 
" The Fort stands on the south side of the Straight of Herrie lake, upon a hill; at the 
foot of which that lake falls into the lake of Frontenac." 



196 HISTORY OF THE 

Troyes, with provisions and ammunition for eight months. They 
were closely besieged by the Senecas, and a sickness soon broke 
out which proved fatal to nearly all of them. 

The Indian allies of the French, returning to Niagara with De 
NoNviLLE, had declared their intention at Irondequoit, after what 
they regarded the failure of the expedition, not to join them in 
another one; but on seeing the fort erected, they became recon- 
ciled, concluding that it would favor their retreat in any expedition 
against the Iroquois. Upon parting with De Nonville, they 
made a speech, in which, among other things they said: — 

" That they depended upon his promise to continue the war 
till the Five Nations were either destroyed or dispossessed of 
their country; that they earnestly desired, that part of the army 
should take the field out of hand, and continue in it both winter 
and summer, for they would certainly do the same on their part; 
and in fine, that for as much as their alliance with France was 
chiefly grounded upon the promises the French made of listening 
to no proposals of peace, 'till the Five Nations should be quite 
extirpated; they therefore hoped thev would be as good as their 
word."* 



De Nonville left Niagara on his return to Montreal, on the 
2d day of August, reaching his destination on the 13th; resting a 
day or two at Fort Frontenac, and leaving at that post one hundred 
men under the command of M. D'Orvilliers. The Senecas soon 
returned and occupied the ground they had deserted. As the 
French Indians predicted, it is probable that the other branches 
of the Confederacy supplied them with corn in the place of what 
the French had destroyed, and game and fish were abundant. 
The early French journalists often speak of the abundance of 
salmon in lake Ontario. On the lake shore, somewhere between 
the Genesee and Oswego rivers, a party of Indian allies that had 
been sent from Niagara in advance of the main army of De 
Nonville, encamped until it came up with them; and more 
fortunate in hunting deer, than in hunting the Senecas, had piled 
up at their camp two hundred for the use of the army. 

La Hontan, much against his inclination, as it would appear from 
a letter dated at Niagara, was ordered to take command of a 

* La Hontan. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 157 

detachment and go west with the returning western Indian allies. 
He says he was "thunderstruck with the news," that he had "fed 
himself all along with the hope of the returning to France." He 
concluded, however, to make the best of it, as he had been supplied 
with "brisk, proper fellows," his "canoes are both new and large," 
and ToNTi and Dulbut were to be his companions. His detach- 
ment came up to Lewiston, or the "place where the navigation 
stops," and carried their canoes up the "three mountains," launch- 
ing them again at Schlosser. He says that in "climbing the 
mou-ntains, one hundred Iroquese might have knocked them on the 
head with stones." And, incredible as it may seem, so soon after 
their route and dispersion, a large body of those indefatigable 
warriors were upon his track. Their stopping place, on their 
retreat a few days before, had been at the foot of Canandaigua 
lake. From that point they had sallied out to post themselves in 
the vicinity of the Falls, to fall in with the French troops on their 
return to the west, or their Indian allies, towards whom they 
entertained a more fierce and settled hostility. The French and 
Indians had but just embarked at Schlosser, when a "thousand 
Iroquese" made their appearance upon the bank of the river. 
With such enemies lurking in the vicinity. La Hontan thought he 
had "escaped very narrowly," as on his way up, he and "three or 
four savages" had left the main body to go and look at "that 
fearful cataract." In his fright, or appi-ehension of danger, he 
must have taken but a hurried view of the Falls, for he made an 
extravagant estimate of their height: — "As for the water-fall of 
Niagara, 'tis seven or eight hundred foot high, and half a league 
[a mile and a half] broad. Towards the middle of it we descry an 
island that leans towards the precipice, as if it were ready to 
fall. All the beasts that cross the water within a half a quarter of 
a league above this unfortunate island, ai'e sucked in by force of 
the stream: and the beasts and fish that are thus killed by the 
prodigious fall, serve for food for fifty Iroquese who are settled 
about two leagues off, and take 'em out of the water with their 
canoes. Between the surface of the water that shelves off" prodi- 
giously, and the foot of the precipice, three men may cross in 
abreast, without any further damage than a sprinkling of some 
few drops of water." 

The party were apprehensive of an attack from the pursuers, 
while getting up the rapids of the Niagara, but, having reached 



ISS HISTORY OF THE 

tlie lake they were secure, the heavy canoes of the Iroquois not 
being able to overtake the Hghtcr ones of the French. They 
coasted along the northern shore of lake Erie. The navigators of 
that lake at the present day, will smile when they arc told that 
these early navigators made a portage of Long Point, carrying 
their canoes and baggage over land. La Hontan speaks of an 
abundance of game, deer, turkeys, «fcc., which they found ujion 
the lake shore, as Avell as upon the islands. The jtarty stojiped 
upon several of the small islands of lake Huron, and, driving the 
"Roe-bucks" (deer) into the water, would overtake them with 
their canoes and knock them upon tiie head with their oars. 

The detachment of La Hontan took possession of the fort of 
St. Josephs, relieving the force that had been stationed there. 
The provisions which De No.wille had promised, tailing to arrive 
during the winter, the garrison was obliged to depend jirincipally 
upon the chase. 

During the winter, a party of Hurons set out over land for the 
garrison at Niagara, determined to enter the country of the Iro- 
quois, as a marauding party to kill and capture detached parties of 
beaver hunters. On their way they came across a party of 
Iroquois hunters, sixty in number, and while they were sleejiing in 
their camps, killed and made prisoners of the whole party. The 
Hurons returned in triumph to the post at IMackinaw. Some of 
the Iroquois prisoners told La Hoxta.n that they were of the party 
of one thousand, that intended to capture him and his command at 
the Falls of Niagara; that when they left, eight hundred of their 
warriors had blocked up Fort Niagara; and that famine and disease 
were fast reducing the small French force there; news that proved 
too true, as the reader will have already learned. They also gave 
La Hoxtan to understand that, after succeeding at Niagara, the 
Iroquois would try the same experiment upon his post. He was 
not apprehensive that they would attack him, but feared they 
would cut oti' his hunters and stop his supplies. To guard against 
this, he employed additional hunters and laid in a large supply of 
meat. The Iroquois not coming to attack him. in the course of the 
season he joined a large party of the western Indians, and invaded 
the country of the Iroquois on the south side of lake Erie, and had 
several engagements with them. 

Soon after De Nonville's expedition, Gov. Dongan met a 
deputation of the Five Nations at Albany, and praised and scolded 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 159 

them in turn, as would best enable him to maintain the appearance 
of neutrality, and at the same time encourage them to persevere 
against the French. He told them they were subjects of the King 
of England, that he claimed dominion over their territory ; that 
they must not enter into any treaty with the French, except with 
his advice and consent. Dr. Colden says tha-t Gov. Dongan was 
not averse to a peace between the French and Iroquois, but he 
wished the French to solicit his assistance to bring it about, and in 
doing so acknowledge the dependence of the Five Nations on the 
crown of England. He was, however over-ruled by King James, 
and ordered to assist in bringing the Iroquois to consent to a peace 
on terms dictated by the French. He was soon after removed 
from his government. 

The French so often foiled by the Iroquois, and so annoyed by 
them and their wars upon other Indian nations, were determined 
upon measures of peace. De Nonville, in the summer of 1688, 
ordered a cessation of hostilities, and succeeded in getting a large 
delegation from the Five Nations to repair to Montreal, for the 
purpose of negotiation. Five hundred of the Iroquois appeared as 
negotiators ; while twelve hundred of their warriors, were await- 
ing the result near Montreal, ready to fall upon the French settle- 
ments, if no treaty was effected. 

The confederates insisted that twelve of their people who had 
been taken prisoners the year previous, and sent by De Nonville 
to the galleys of France, should be returned to their countiy ; that 
Forts Frontenac and Niagara should be razed ; and that the 
Senecas should be paid for the destruction of their property. De 
Nonville declared his willingness to put an end to the war if all 
his Indian allies were included in a treaty of peace ; if the Mohawks 
and Senecas would send deputies to signify their concurrence ; and 
Fort Frontenac might remain in their hands, and continued as a 
depot of trade. 

The French and English accounts differ as to the terms of peace 
finally agreed upon. But a treaty was concluded, which was 
frustrated by an unforeseen occurrence. 

Among the French Indian allies, was Kondiaronk, or Le Rat, 
a Huron chief, powerful in council and in arms. He had leagued 
with De Nonville to aid in warring upon the Iroquois, his enemies, 
and the enemies of his nation. From no love for the English, (for 
he hated them because they were the friends of the Iroquois,) but 



1€0 HISTORY OF THE 

for the sake of making a good sale of his furs, he had seemed to 
favor some of their trading parties that had been among the 
Hurons. This had excited the jealousy of the French ; to remove 
which, he repaired to Fort Frontenac with an hundred warriors. 
Arriving there, he was told by the commandant that De Nonville 
was in hopes of concluding a peace with the Iroquois, and that the 
presence of him and his warriors might obstruct the negotiations. 
Feigning acquiescence, he determined upon a plan not only to 
prevent a peace, but to punish his French allies for breaking the 
league they had made, to continue the war. Under the pretence 
of returning to his country, he took another direction, and repairing 
to one of the falls of the St. Lawrence, he placed his warriors in 
ambush, and when a large party of the Iroquois came up, on their 
return from Montreal, he attacked them, killing a part, and making 
prisoners of the remainder. He gave the prisoners to understand 
that he was acting in concert with the French ; that De Nonville 
had told him when he could best interrupt the party on its way 
from Montreal. When told by his prisoners that they were peace 
ambassadors, he affected great surprise and indignation ; and 
addressing them, said : — "Go, my brethren, I untie your hands, and 
send you home again, though our nations be at war. The French 
Governor has made me commit so black an action, that I shall 
never be easy after it, till the Five Nations shall have taken full 
revenge." 

As the wily Huron chief had anticipated, the discharged prison- 
ers spread the news of French perfidy, (as it seemed to them,) on 
their return to their country, and measures for the renewal of- the 
war, and revenge, soon followed ; those of the Five Nations who 
had been friendly to the French zealously co-operating. An army 
of twelve hundred warriors was soon ready for the field. On the 
26th of July, 1688, they landed on the south side of the Island of 
Montreal, while the French were in perfect security ; burnt their 
houses, sacked their plantations, and put to the sword all the men, 
women, and children, without the skirts of the town. "A thousand 
French were slain in the invasion, and twenty-six carried into 
captivity and burnt aUve. Many more were made prisoners, in 
another attack, in October, and the lower part of the Island wholly 
destroyed. Only three of the confederates were lost in all this 
scene of misery and desolation."* 

* Smith's History of the " Province of New York," the statement is upon the author- 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 161 

As soon as the news reached Fort Frontenac, that post was 
hurriedly abandoned. On leaving, the French designed to have 
blown up the works, but the match which was to fire the magazine 
did not accomplish its purpose. The Iroquois hearing that the fort 
was deserted, repaired to it, and secured a large amount of plunder, 
a part of which, was twenty-eight kegs of powder. 

The news of these disasters spreading among the French Indian 
allies at the west, had the effect to alienate most of them and 
incline them to the English interests. In fact all but two Nations, 
were thus affected. The whole range of country from Quebec to 
the western posts, was possessed by the Iroquois or scoured by 
their war parties ; and nothing saved the western posts, but the 
inabihty of the Indians to attack successfully fortified places. Added 
to the other misfortunes of the French upon the St. Lawrence, was 
a threatened famine. The war and the fur trade, had diverted 
from agriculture, and supplies failed to reach them from France. 
Shut up in their fortifications, the Iroquois were ready to fall upon 
them whenever they ventured out. Sjhth, the early historian of 
New York, says ; " but for the uncommon sagacity of Sieur Perot, 
the western Indians would have murdered every Frenchman among 
them." Dr. Golden says : " I say, whoever considers all these 
things, [ disadvantages he enumerates under which the Iroquois 
carried on the war, growing out of the want of an entire unity 
among themselves, and other wars in which they were engaged, ] 
and what the Five Nations did actually perform, will hardly doubt 
that they of themselves, were at that time an over match for the 
French of Canada." 

The English taking advantage of the emergency in which the 
French were placed, held a conference at Albany with the 
Mohawks. A Mohawk chief assuming to speak for the entire 
confederacy, said ; — •' We have burned Montreal, we are allies of 
the English, we will keep the chain unbroken." 

While all this was transpiring upon the American continent the 
revolution in England was consummated by the elevation of the 
Prince of Orange to the English throne. This changed the whole 
complexion of English and French affairs, at home as well as in 

ity of Dr. Golden. Charlevois says the attack upon Montreal was late in August, and 
that the Iroquois were 1500 strong ; that the loss of the French was only two hundred 
souls. 

Note. — When the war was renewed with the French, the Senecas were at war 
with three Western Nations ; — the Utawawas, Chicktaghicks and Twightwies. 
11 



162 HISTORY OF THE 

their colonies. James II. had been accused of partiality to the 
French and the colonial measures he had dictated were more 
favorable to French interests in America than the English colonists 
and the Protestant party in England, had hoped to see adopted. 
The recall of Gov. Dongan, and the position of neutrality the 
King had dictated to the English colonists, in the war between the 
French and the Iroquois, were among the colonial measures that 
were complained of. The policy of Dongan would have excluded 
the Jesuits and their powerful influence from the country of the 
Five Nations, as well as other territory claimed by the English ; 
while King James was too much of a Catholic to second his views. 

France declared war against England, soon after the revolution 
of 1689. Among the offensive measures immediately adopted, 
were those which not only contemplated a regaining of all lost 
ground in America, but the conquering of the EngUsh colonies and 
the perfecting of exclusive French dominion. 

De NoxviLLE was recalled, and Count de Frontenac ordered to 
sail for New France, and assume the local government. 

' Previous to the arrival of Frontenac, the Iroquois had aban- 
doned Montreal. He arrived at Quebec. Oct. 2d, 1689. His 
vigorous measures soon gave to French affairs a different aspect. 
Remaining but a few days at Quebec, he pushed on to Montreal. 
There he summoned a general council of the western Indians, 
"There, as a representative of the Gallic monarch, claiming to be 
the bulwark of Christendom — Count Frontenac, himself a peer 
of France, now in his seventieth year, placed the murderous 
hatchet in the hands of his allies; and with the tomahawk in his 
own grasp, chanted the war song, danced the war dance, and 
listened, apparently with delight, to the threats of savage ven- 
geance.* An alliance with all the Indians between lake Ontario 
and the Mississippi was perfected. Fort Frontenac was again 
garrisoned with a detachment of French troops. The new French 
governor took every means in his power to win the Five Nations 
to his interest, reahzing how important their friendship would be, 
in the contest with the English, that he was about to engage in. 
Frontenac brought with him from France the Iroquois that De 
NoNviLLE had sent home as prisoners, one of whom was a chief 
of some note. With an eye to the use he could make of them in 
peace negotiations, he had treated them with much kindness. 

* Bancroft. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 163 

Retaining the chief Tawarahet, he sent the other four to Onon- 
daga with overtures of peace. A. council of eighty sachems was 
convened; previous to which, however, the magistrates of Albany 
had been apprised of what was going on, and had sent messengers 
to the council, to oppose any peace measures. An Onondaga chief, 
Sadekanaghtie, opened the council, stating that the French 
governor had brought back the prisoners from France; had sent 
four of them to their own country, and retained the rest at 
Montreal as hostages; that he had invited the Iroquois to meet him 
at Cadai-ackui to "treat about the old chain." A chief of the 
•'praying Indians,"'* that had accompanied the discharged peace 
ambassadors, rose up in the council and presented a belt, saying it 
was from Tawarahet, the captive chief, in token that he had 
suffered much in his long captivity, and desired that they would 
meet the French governor as he desired. The messengers of the 
magistrates of Albany delivered their message which urged that no 
overtures that the French might make, should be listened to. 
Caxehoot, the Seneca sachem, whose stirring eloquence had 
roused the Senecas to resist the invasion of De Nonville, 
informed the council that during the previous summer, as many as 
seven of the western Nations had made peace with the Senecas 
and had "thrown away the axe that Yonnondio had put into their 
hands;" assuring them that they should no more hearken to Yox- 
NONDio, but, like the Iroquois, be on terms of peace with the 
English. The Onondaga chief who had opened the council, said: — 
"Brethren, we must stick to our brother Quider,\ and look on 
YoNNONDio as our enemy, for he is a cheat." The Albany 
messengers assured the council that, as France and England were 
at war, a great many English soldiers had been sent over; that an 
expedition was fitting out in New England to conquer New France, 
&;c. The council determined upon not entertaining the proposition 
of the French governor, but to assist the English to " strike at the 
root, that the trunk being cut down, the branches fall of course." | 
An answer to the French governor was agreed upon, which was 
in substance: — "That they were glad he had brought back their 

* Such of the Iroquois a8 the Jesuits had converted, were so called, There was a 
settlement of thom near Montreal. 

t Peter Schuyler, the mayor of Albany. 

t Meaning an attack on Quebec. 



164 HISTORY OF THE 

people from France, but that the French had acted deceitfully so 
often, that they could not trust them;" that they could not meet him 
as he wished at Cadarackui, for their council fire was "extin- 
guished with blood." Their ultimatum was, that their chief, 
Tawarahet must first be sent home; and after that, they might 
"speak of peace." They proposed to save the lives of all their 
French prisoners until spring, and release them upon condition 
that the French released all their people. 

In the winter of 1690, a party of one hundred and fifty French 
and Indians, left Montreal, and " wading through snows and 
morasses, through forests deemed before impervious to white men, 
and across rivers bridged with frost, arrived on the 18th of 
February, at Schenectady."* With the general features of this 
expedition, and its fatal termination, the reader will be familiar. 
There have been several versions of it — most of them imperfect. 
Among the Paris Documents, brought to this country by Mr. 
Broadhead, is a minute relation of all that appertained to the 
expedition, written at the time, and sent to the celebrated M. de 
Maintenon. The author uses a translation of it, which has 
been recently published in the Albany Argus. This is, of course, 
French authority; our accounts heretofore have been wholly from 
English sources: — 

•'The orders received by M. le Comte (de Frontenac) to 
commence hostilities against New England and New York, which 
had declared for the Prince of Orange, afforded him considerable 
pleasure, and were very necessary for the country. He allowed 
no more time to elapse before carrying them into execution, than 
was required to send off" some despatches to France — immediately 
after which he determined to organize three different detachments, 
to attack those rebels at all points at the same moment, and to 
punish them, at various places, for having afforded protection to 
our enemies, the Mohawks. The first party was to rendezvous at 
Montreal, and proceed towards Orange (Albany;) the second at 
Three Rivers, and to make a descent on New York, at some place 
between Boston and Orange, and the third was to depart from 
Quebec, and gain the seaboard between Boston and Pentagouet, 
verging towards Acadia. They all succeeded perfectly well, and 
I shall now communicate to you the details. 

****** 

The detachment which formed at Montreal, may have been 

• Bancroft 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 165 

composed of about two hundred and ten men, namely: eighty 
savages from the Sault, and from La Montague; sixteen Algon- 
quins; and the remainder Frenchmen — all under the command of 
the Sieur Le Movne de Sainte Helene, and Lieutenant Daille- 
BOUT DE Mantet, both of whom were Canadians. The Sieurs 
le MoYNE d'Iberville and Repentigny de Montesson com- 
manded under these. The best qualified Frenchmen were the 
Sieurs de Bonrepos and de La Brosse, Calvinist officers, Sieurs 
la Moyne de Blainville, Le Bert du Chene, and la Marque 
DE MoNTiGNY, who all scrvcd as volunteers. They took their 
departure from Montreal at the commencement of February. 

'• After having marched for the course of five or six days, they 
called a council to determine the route they should follow, and the 
point they should attack. 

'' The Indians demanded of the French what was their intention. 
Messieurs de Sainte Helene and Mantet replied that they had 
left in the hope of attacking Orange, (Albany) if possible, as it is 
the Capital of New York and a place of considerable importance, 
though they had no orders to that effect, but generally to act 
according as they should judge, on the spot, of their chances of 
success, without running too much risk. This appeared to the 
savages somewhat rash. They represented the difficulties and the 
weakness of the party for so bold an undertaking. There was 
even one among them who, with his mind filled with the recollec- 
tion of the disasters which he had witnessed last year, enquired of 
our Frenchmen, 'since when had they become sa desperate?' 
It was our intention, now, to regain the honor of which our 
misfortunes had deprived us, and the sole means to accomplish 
that, we replied, was to carry Orange, or to perish in so glorious 
an enterprise. 

"As the Indians, who had an intimate acquaintance with the 
localities, and more experience than the French, could not be 
brought to agree with the latter, it wa-s determined to postpone 
coming to a conclusion until the party should arrive at the spot 
where the two routes separate — the one leading to Orange, and 
the other to Corlear (Schenectady). In the course of the journey, 
which occupied eight days, the Frenchmen judged proper to 
diverge towards Corlear, according to the advice of the Indians; 
and this road was taken without calling a new council. Nine 
days more elapsed before they arrived, having experienced incon- 
ceivable difficulties, and having been obliged to march up to their 
knees in water, and to break the ice with their feet in order to find 
a solid footing. 

"They arrived within two leagues of Corlear, about 4 o'clock 
in the evening, and were there harangued by the Great Agniez, 
the chief of the Iroquois from the Sault. He urged on all to 
perform their duty, and to lose all recollections of their fatigue, in 
the hope of taking ample revenge for the injuries which they had 



166 HISTORY OF THE 

received from the Mohawks at the solicitation of the EngHsh, and 
of washing themselves in the blood of the traitors. This savage 
was, without contradiction the most considerable of his tribe — an 
honest man — as full of spii'it, prudence, and generosity as it was 
possible, and capable at the same time of the grandest undertakings. 
Shortly after, four squaws were discovered in a wigwam who gave 
every information necessary for the attack on the town. The fire 
found in this hut served to warm those who were benumbed, and 
they continued their route, having previously detached Giguieres, 
a Canadian, with nine Indians, on the look out. They discovered 
no one, and returned to join the main body within one league of 
Corlear, 

"At eleven of the clock that night, they came within sight of 
the town, resolved to defer the assault until two o'clock of the 
morning. But the excessive cold admitted of no further delay. 

" The town of Corlear forms a sort of oblong square, with only 
two gates — one opposite the road we had taken; the other leading 
to Orange, which is only six leagues distant. Messieurs de 
Sainte Helene and de Mantet were to enter at the first, which 
the Squaws pointed out, and which in fact was found wide open. 
Messieurs d'Iberville and de Montesson took the left, with 
another detachment, in order to make themselves masters of that 
loading to Orange. But they could not discover it, and I'eturned to 
join the remainder of the party. A profound silence was every 
where observed, until the two commanders, who separated, at their 
entrance into the town, for the purpose of encircling it, had met at 
the other extremity. 

" The wild Indian war-whoop was then raised, and the entire 
force rushed simultaneously to the attack. M. de Mantet placed 
himself at the head of a detachment, and reached a small fort 
where the garrison was under arms. The gate was bui'st in after 
a good deal of difficulty; the whole set on fire, and all who 
defended the place were slaughtered. 

" The sack of the town began a moment before the attack of 
the fort. Few houses made any resistance. M. de Montigny 
discovered some, which he attempted to carry sword in hand, 
having tried the musket in vain. He received two thrusts of a 
spear — one in the body and the other in the arm. But M. de 
Sainte Helene having come to his aid, effected an entrance, and 
put every one of the garrison to the sword. The massacre lasted 
two hours. The remainder of the night was spent in placing 
sentinels and taking some rest. 

" The house belonging to the minister was ordered to be saved, 
so as to take him alive, to obtain information from him. But, as it 
was not known, it was not saved any more than the others. He 
was slain and his papers burnt before he could be recognized. 

" At daybreak, some men were sent to the dwelling of Mr. 
CoiTDRE, who was Major of the place at the other side of the 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 167 

river. He was not willing to surrender, and began to put himself 
on the defensive, with his servants and some Indians; but as it was 
resolved not to do him any harm, in consequence of the good 
treatment which the French had formerly experienced at his 
hands, M. d'Iberville and the Great Agniez proceeded thither 
alone, promised him quarter for himself, and his people and his 
property, whereupon he laid down his arms, on parole; enter- 
taining them in his fort, and returned with them to see the com- 
mandants of the town. 

In order to occupy the savages, who would otherwise have 
taken to drink, and thus rendered themselves unable for defence, 
the houses had already been set on fire. None were spared in the 
town but one house belonging to Coudre, and that of a widow 
who had six children, whither M. de Montigny had been carried 
when wounded. All the rest were consumed. The lives of 
between fifty and sixty persons, old men, women and children, 
were spared, they having escaped the first fury of the attack. 
Some twenty Mohawks were also spared, in order to show that it 
was the English and not they, against whom the grudge was 
entertained. The loss on this occasion in houses, cattle and grain, 
amounted to more than four hundred thousand livres. There 
were upwards of eighty well built and well furnished houses in 
town. 

" The return march commenced with thirty prisoners. The 
wounded, who were to be Carried, and the plunder, with which all 
the Indians and some Frenchmen were loaded, caused considerable 
inconvenience. Fifty good horses were brought away. Sixteen 
only of these reached Montreal. The remainder were lulled for 
food on the way. 

" Sixty leagues from Corlear, the Indians began to hunt, and the 
French not being able to wait for them, being short of provisions, 
continued their I'oute, having detached Messieurs d'Iberville and 
Du Chesne with two savages before them to Montreal. On the 
same day, some Frenchmen, who doubtless were very much 
fatigued, lost their way. Fearful that they should be obliged to 
keep up with the main body, and believing themselves in safety, 
having eighty Indians in their rear, they were found missing from 
the camp. They were waited for next day until eleven o'clock, 
but in vain, and no account has since been received of them. 

" Two hours after, forty men left the main body without 
acquainting the commander, continued their route by themselves, 
and arrived within two leagues of Montreal one day ahead, so 
that there were not more than fifty or sixty men together. The 
evening on which they should arrive at Montreal, being extremely 
fatigued from fasting and bad roads, the rear fell away from M. de 
Sainte Helene, who was in front with an Indian guide, and who 
could not find a place suitable for encamping nearer than three or 
four leagues of the spot where he expected to halt. He was not 



168 HISTORY OF THE 

rejoined by M. de Mantet and the others, until far advanced in 
the night. Seven have not been found. Next day on parade 
about 10 o clock in the forenoon, a soldier arrived, who announced 
that they had been attacked by fourteen or fifteen savages, and 
that six had been killed. The party proceeded somewhat afflicted 
by this accident, and arrived at Montreal at 3 o'clock, P. M. 

" Such, Madame, is the account of what passed at the taking of 
Corlear (Schenectady). The French lost but twenty-one men, 
namely, four Indians and seventeen Frenchmen. Only one Indian 
and one Frenchman were killed at the capture of the town. The 
others were lost on the road." 

Another French party, of but fifty three persons, left the Three 
Rivers, and fell upon an English settlement on the Piscataqua in 
Maine, and after a bloody engagement, burnt houses, barns and 
cattle in their stalls, and captured fifty-four persons, chiefly women 
and children. 

The French and English war continued until 1697. The details 
of it enter largely into our general history. It was a war, so far 
as the colonies were concerned, growing out of disputed boundary 
and dominion ; the chief or immediate interest at stake, being the 
fur trade and the fisheries upon our northern coast. In all the war, 
each nation had its Indian allies, who were left, in most instances, 
to prosecute their own mode of w^arfare. At times during the war, 
Frontenac was enabled to succeed partially with some portions of 
the Five Nations, through the influence of the Jesuits and the 
christian Indians, in occasionally securing their neutrahty ; but for 
the most part, they were the implacable enemies of the French. 
In the distracted condition of the English, the dissensions andpoUtical 
rivalries in their colonies; the feeblenesswnth which they prosecuted 
war measures, as all must have observed, who are familiar with the 
history of those times ; had it not been for the aid of the Iroquois, 
who occupied an advantageous position to form a barrier against 
French incursions in a defenceless quarter, the English colonies 
would have suffered much worse, if indeed French conquest had 
not been consummated. After the disaster of Schenectady, the 

Note. — Golden says the number of inhabitants massacred was sixt}'-three, and that 
iwenty-seven were carried away prisoners. In reference to -the attack upon the French 
in their retreat, he says: — " The care the French took to soothe the Mohawks, had 
not entirely its effect," for as soon as they heard of this action, a hundred of their 
readiest young men pursued the French,' fell upon their rear, and killed and took 
twenty-five of them." The English accounts generally, state, that the citizens of 
Schenectady, not apprehensive of an attack from Montreal at such a season of the 
year, were all asleep, with their gates unclosed. 



I 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 169 

remnant of a settlement left there, were for abandoning their pos- 
sessions. They were encouraged to remain by the Mohawks, who 
assured them that the Five Nations had beat the French every 
where, single handed, and could easily control them, if the 
English would do their part. The Five Nations were indignant at 
what they deemed the temerity of some portion of the citizens of 
Albany, who contemplated fleeing to New York. 

During the whole period of this war, the Iroquois had uninter- 
rupted possession of all the region west of Onondaga lake, and in 
fact of the whole west of Schenectady, with the exception of some 
incursions of the French which will be noticed. It was an interim 
generally of quiet with them and other Indian nations. They 
made several incursions, down the St. Lawrence, attacking the 
French near Montreal, with considerable success. 

The English soon after the breaking out of the war, made formi- 
idable preparations for the conquest of Quebec and Montreal, as the 
starting point for putting an end to French dominion in this portion 
of the continent. The measures of Frontenac, as has been before 
observed, looked to an end of English dominion. Little was 
accomplished by either in furtherance of their ultimate designs. 
The EngHsh expeditions to the St. Lawrence were failures ; and 
the French incursions were but marauding expeditions, marked 
with all the horrors and barbarities of savage warfare. In refer- 
ence to the results of the year 1691, and the failures of the English 
expeditions, Mr. Bancroft remarks — "Repulsed from Canada, 
the exhausted [English] colonies, attempted little more than the 
defence of their frontiers. Their borders were full of sorrow, of 
captivity and death." 

After the English had abandoned their designs upon the head 
quarters of the French upon the St. Lawrence, Frontenac turned 
his attention to the Five Nations, whom he alternately, by missions 
and treaties, endeavored to win, and by invasions to terrify into an 
alliance. In February, 1692, three hundred French, with Indian 
confederates, were sent over the snows, against the hunting parties 
of the Senecas in Upper Canada, near the Niagara."* In 1693, 
a large party -invaded the country of the Mohawks, destroyed 
several castles, at one of which a small band of warriors so well 
resisted the invaders as to cause them the loss of thirty men. 

* Bancroft. 



170 HISTORY OF THE 

Frontenac had ordered no quarters to be given, except to women 
and children, but a more humane poUcy of his Indian alhes pre- 
vailed. They attempted to carry away prisoners, but a small force 
collected by Peter Schuyler, of Albany, pursued and liberated 
the captives. 

Toward the close of the war, in 1696, Frontenac, then seventy- 
four years of age, headed the last French expedition to Western 
New York. Assembling a large force at Fort Frontenac, he 
crossed over to Oswego, and marching thence to the chief settle- 
ment of the Onondagas, found it deserted. This central nation of 
the Iroquois had followed the example of the Senecas and set fire 
to their wigwams. 

The only prisoner taken, was an aged chief, who had refused to 
fly, or probably from weakness and infirmity, could not. The 
Indian allies of the French were allowed to torture him ; but he 
" scoflfed at his tormentors as the slaves of those he despised." 
They gave him mortal wounds, and expiring under them, his last 
words were ; — "You should have taken more time to learn to 
meet death manfully ! I die contented ; for I have no cause of self 
reproach. You Indians their allies, you dogs of dogs, think of me 
when you shall be in the like state." 

Dr. CoLDEN says the Onondagas were deterred from remaining 
and defending their houses, by the frightful accounts that a Seneca 
gave them, who had deserted from the French. He said the French 
army was as numerous as " the leaves on the trees ; that they had 
machines which threw balls up into the air, and which falling on 
their castle would burst to pieces and spread fire and death every 
where ; against which, their stockades could be no defence." 

The Chevalier de VAroREUiL was detached with a large force 
to ravage the country of the Oneidas and destroy their crops. The 
Oneidas were less hostile to the French than the rest of the con- 
federacy. Thirty or forty of them remained to make the French 
welcome, but they were made prisoners and taken to Montreal. 

Frontenac was urged by some of his officers to extend the con- 
quest, but he declined, saying "it was time for him to repose." He 
concluded he had so far intimidated the Five Nations as to incline 
them to peace. It is plain, however, that the French had learned 
to dread the Iroquois and their stratagems, and were fearful that the 
retreat from their towns was, but to collect in full force, and perhaps 
surprise their invaders by an ambuscade. Golden, who, as an 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. H! 

Englishman, and the historian of the Five Nations, inclines to cavil 
generally ii|)on the French expeditions, says; — "all that can be 
said for this exj)odition, is, that it was a kind of heroic dotage ;" and 
it would seem to have been somewhat of that complexion. 

The French anny returned to Montreal, not, however, without 
being harassed on their way by tlu; Onondagas. But a few weeks 
had elapsed before war parties of the Five Nations appeared in the 
vicinity of Montreal, making attacks upon the French settlements. 
"Thus," says Coi.den, "the war was continued until the peace of 
liyswick, by small })arties of Indians on both sides, harrassing, 
surprising, and scalping the inhabitants of Montreal and Albany." 

The war settled nothing in the way of respective boundary and 
dominion, except perhaps a kind of mutual acknowledgment of 
what each had claimed before. It left Western New York to con- 
tinue to be a bone of contention. The French had conceded to 
iheni the whole coast and adjacent Islands, from Maine to beyond 
Labrador and Hudson's Bay, besides Canada, the western Lake 
I'eginn, and the valley of the Mississippi. 

In adjusting the boundaries, the English commissioner claimed 
all the country of the Five Nations, and that it extended west, so 
far even as to include Mackinaw, This extravagant ambition was 
treated with derision ; the French still claiming the whole country 
of the Five Nations, from discovery and precedent occupancy, by 
a rrarrison at Nia<rara, and their missionaries and traders. "Reli- 
gious sympathies" says Bancroft "inclined the Five Nations to 
the French, but commercial advantages brought them always into 
connection with the English." About the period of the attempt to 
settle the question of boundary in New York, the English passed a 
law for hanging "every Po[)ish priest that should come voluntarily 
into the province ;" including, of course, the dis[)ut.ed ground, as 
tliat was claimed to be a part of the province. "The law ought 
fonner to continue in force," says Smith, the first histoi'ian of New 
York, whr) had strong prejudices against the French and their reli- 
gion. Mr. Bancroft, in a better spirit, concludes that his pre- 
decessor was "wholly unconscious of the true nature of his 
remark." While the French and English both laid claim to 
Western New York, the rightful owners and occupants never for 
a moment assented to either of the claims but insisted upon their 
independence. 

In 1700 a peace was ratified between the Iroquois on the one 



172 HISTORY OF THE 

side, and France and her Indian allies on the other. The Rat, the 
Huron chief who had so craftily played the part of an lago, in 
preventing a previous peace, said at a council at Montreal: — "I 
lay down the axe at my father's feet;" the deputies of the four 
tribes of Ottawas echoed his words. All the western Indians 
agreed to terms of peace. A general exchange of prisoners took 
place, as well between the hostile Indian nations, as between the 
French and the Five Nations.* 

Count Frontenag died soon after the close of the French and 
English war, and was succeeded in the government of New 
France, by De Calliers, who had been first in rank under him in 
his military expeditions. Lord Bellamont, succeeded Colonel 
Sloughter, as Governor of the English provinces. The new 
French Governor insisted upon French jurisdiction of the Iroquois, 
and that question remained unsettled, while all others were 
adjusted. 

The peace between England and France was of short duration. 
The smoke of what was termed " King William's War," had 
hardly cleared away, when " Queen Anne's War " commenced. 
In the month of may, 1702, war was declared between Queen 
Anne and her allies, the Emperor of Germany and the States 



* " I shall finish this Part by observing that, notwithstanding the French Commis- 
sioners took all pains possible to carry Home the French that were Prisoners with the 
Five Nations, and they had full Liberty from the Indians, few of them could be 
persuaded to return. It may be thought that this was occasioned by the Hardships they 
endured in their own Country, under a tyrannical Government and a barren Soil. But 
this certainly was not the only reason; for the English had as much Difficulty to per- 
suade the people that had been taken Prisoners by the French Indiana, to leave the 
Indian Manner of living, though no People enjoy more Liberty, and live in greater 
Plenty than the common Inhabitants of New York do. No Arguments, no Intreaties, 
nor Tears of their Friends and Relations, could persuade many of them to leave their 
New Indian Friends and Acquaintance; several of them that were by the Caressings 
of their Relations persuaded to come Home, in a little time grew tired of our Manner 
of living, and run away again to the Indians, and ended their Days with them. On 
the other Hand Indian Children have been carefully educated among the English, 
clothed and taught, yet I think there is not one Instance, that any of these, after they 
had Liberty to go among their own People, and were come to Age, would remain witli 
the English, but returned to their own Nations, and became as fond of the Indian 
manner of Life as those that knew nothing of the civilized Manner of living. What I 
now tell of Christian Prisoners among Indians, relates not only to what happened at 
the Conclusion of the War, but has been found true on many other occasions." 

COLDEN, 

Note. — The captive chief Tawarahet died in Montreal. Colden says the French 
gave him a christian burial, in a pompous manner; the Priest that had attended him at 
his death having declared that he died a true christian; for, said the Priest, while I 
explained to him the passion of our Savior, whom the Jews crucified, ho cried out: — 
"Oh! had I been there, I would have revenged his death, and brought awav their 
scalps." 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 173 

General, of Holland, and France and Spain. It was soon extended 
to the colonies, and another long and bloody war ensued. By this 
time the French, through the influence of the Jesuit Missionaries, 
and the diplomacy of Vaudreuil, had fully reinstated themselves 
in the good will of the western Indians, and made allies of the 
most powerful nations of New England. This gave them by far 
the vantage ground throughout the war. The Province of New 
York took but little part in the contest, and its chief burden fell 
upon New England. The Indians, within their own limits, rein- 
forced by the Indians of Canada, and not unfrequently accompanied 
by the French, made incursions into all parts of the eastern 
English Provinces, falling upon the frontier settlements with the 
torch, the tomahawk and knife, and furnishing a long catalogue of 
captivity and death, that mark that as one of the most trying 
periods in a colonial history upon almost every page of which we 
are forcibly reminded how much of blood and suflering it cost our 
pioneer ancestors to maintain a foothold upon this continent.* 
The war on the part of the English colonies, was principally 
directed against Port Royal, Quebec, and Montreal. Most of the 
e'xpeditions they fitted out were failures; there was a suspicion of 
shipwreck, badly framed schemes of conquest; organization of 
forces but to be disbanded before they had consummated any 
definite purposes; "marching up hills and marching down again." 

Such being the geographical features of the war; the Province 
of New York having assented to the treaty of neutrality between 
the French and Five Nations, and contenting itself with an enjoy- 
ment of Indian trade, while their neighboring Provinces were 
struggling against the French and Indians; there is little to notice 
having any immediate connection with our local relations. 

Generally, during the war, the Five Nations preserved their 
neutrality. They managed with consummate skill to be the friends 
of both the English and French. Situated between two powerful 
nations at war with each other, they concluded the safest way 
was to keep themselves in a position to fall in with the one that 
finally triumphed. At one period when an attack upon Montreal 
was contemplated, they were induced by the English to furnish a 
large auxiliary force, that assembled with a detachment of English 

* From the year 1675, to the close of Queen Anne's War, in 1713, about six thousand 
of the Enghsh colo-nists, had perished by the stroke of the enemy or by distempers 
convracted in military service. 



174 ' HISTORY OF THE 

troops at Wood Creek. The whole scheme amounting to a failure, 
no opportunity was afforded of testing their sincerity, but from 
some circumstances that transpired, it was suspected that they 
were as much inclined to the French as to the English. At one 
period during the war, five Iroquois sachems were prevailed upon 
to visit England for the purpose of urging renewed attempts to 
conquer Canada. They were introduced to the Queen, decked 
out in splendid wardrobe, exhibited through the streets of London, 
at the theatres, and other places of public resort; feasted and 
toasted, they professed that their people were ready to assist in 
exterminating the French, but threatened to go home and join the 
French unless more effectual war measures were adopted. This 
was a lesson undoubtedly taught them by the English colonists 
who had sent them over to aid in exciting more interest at home 
in the contest that was waging in the colonies. The visit of the 
sachems had temporarily the desired effect. It aided in inducing 
the English government to furnish the colonies with an increased 
force of men and vessels of war; in assisting in a renewed expe- 
dition against Montreal and Quebec, which ended, as others had, 
in a failure. They got nothing from the Five Nations but profes- 
sions; no overt act of co-operation and assistance. The governor 
of the province of New York, all along refused to m-ge them to 
violate their engagements of neutrality; for as neutrals, they were 
a barrier to the frontier settlements of New York, against the 
encroachments of the French and their Indian allies. 

The treaty of Utrecht, in April, 1713, put an end to the war. 
France ceded to England, " all Nova Scotia or Acadia, with its 
ancient boundaries, also the city of Port Royal, now called 
Annapolis Royal, and all other things in those parts, which depend 
upon the said lands." France stipulated in the treaty that she 
would " never molest the Five Nations subject to the dominion of 
Great Britain," leaving still undefined their boundaries, to form 
with other questions of boundary and dominion, future disa- 
greements. 

In all this contest, France lost no foothold at the West; but 
had kept on strengthening and extending its trading establishments 
in that quarter; following up the new impulse which had been 
given to their interests there, at the close of King William's war, 
through the successful diplomacy of Frontenac. In June, 1701, 
De la ToTTE Cadillac, with a Jesuit Missionary and one hundred 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 175 

Frenchmen took possession, and became the founders of Detroit. 
At that period there were three numerous Indian villages in the 
immediate vicinity of the French post. 

In 1722, William Burnet, Governor of the Province of New 
York and New Jersey, who had acquired an accurate and thorough 
knowledge of the interior geography of Western New York, 
considered it very important to get command of lake Ontario. 
To accomplish this object, strengthen English influence over the 
Six Nations; and defeat the French project of a continuous line of 
forts, stretching from Quebec to the Gulf of Mexico, he established 
a trading house at Oswego in the country of the Senecas. The 
French having repaired the fort at Niagara, and built a large store 
house in 1725, he in 1726, at his own expense, built a fort at 
Oswego. In a report of the " committee of the council " of New 
York, in 1724, they say "the government has built a public trading 
house upon Cataraqui lake, at Irojidequat, on the Scnnehas' lands, 
and another is to be built next spring on the Onondagas' (Oswego) 
river." In a letter written by "J. A. Esq., to Mr. P. C.," of 
London, dated New York, 1740, on the subject of the measures 
taken by Gov. Burnet, for " redeeming the Indian trade out of the 
hands of the French," it is said: — "Gov. Burnet, through his 
earnest application, and at first chiefly with his money, credit and 
risk, erected a trading house and fortification at the mouth of the 
Onondagues river, called Osneigo, where the province of New 
York supports a garrison of soldiers, consisting of a Lieutenant 
and twenty men, which are yearly relieved. At this place a very 
great trade is carried on with the remote Indians, who formerly 
used to go down to the French, at Montreal, and there buy our 
English goods, at second hand, at about twice the price they now 
pay for them at Osneigo.^' 

About the period of the occupation of Oswego by the English, 
and the re-occupation of Niagara by the French, a warm contest 
arose in the Province of New York, growing out of the fact that 
the French had taken the advantage of the interim of peace, and 
were buying their Indian goods in New York. The English 
Indian traders, by representing that this was helping the French to 
almost wholly engross the Indian trade, and aiding in alienating 
the Indians from the English, procured the passage of an act 
forbidding merchants in the Province of New York, selling Indian 
2:oods to the French. The laM' was not to the likinsr of the New 



If6 HISTORY OF THE 

York merchants, who made bitter complaints of its effects. Grow- 
ing out of this controversy, was a memorial which stated the 
relative advantages of bringing goods into the country by the way 
of Montreal, and Quebec, and New York. After enumerating the 
great expenses and disadvantages of the northern French route, 
they speak of the facilities the French enjoy after getting upon the 
lakes and the Mississippi: — there is opened to them, says the 
memorial, "such a scene of inland navigation as cannot be paral- 
leled in any other part of the world." With reference to the 
English route to the lakes and the Mississippi, they say: — "From 
Albany, the English traders commonly carry their goods over-land 
sixteen miles to the Mohawk river at Schenectady, the charge of 
which carriage is nine shillings New York money, or five shillings 
sterling, each wagon load. From Schenectady they carry them 
in canoes up the Mohawk river, to the carrying place between the 
Mohawk river and the river which runs into the Oneida lake; 
which carrying place between is only three miles long, except in 
very dry weather, when they are obliged to carry them two miles 
farther. From thence they go down with the current the Onon- 
daga river to Cataracui lake." This, the author ventures to 
assume, is the earliest written document having reference to the 
inland navigation of our state. Its date is 1724. 

The peace of Europe was again interrupted by a war in which 
England, Spain, France and Austria, were ultimately, involved; 
together with the American colonies of the three first named. 
The events that distinguished it, however interesting and important 
as matters of general colonial history, have little or no relation to 
this section of country. The frontiers of Florida and Georgia 
became involved. Oglethorpe, the Governor of Georgia, con- 
ducted an expedition against St. Augustine, with forces raised in 
the newly settled province. An English fleet, commanded by 
Vernon, captured Porto Bello, destroyed the fort at Chargres, and 
demolished the fortifications at Carthagena, in the West Indies. 
England sent out to the Gulf of Mexico the largest naval armament 
that had ever before sailed upon its waters. Four battalions were 
demanded of the colonies north of Carolina to accompany it. The 
colonies complied with the requisition, and furnished the troops. 
England set out with the intention of conquering the richest 
Spanish provinces in America; but, after all her efforts and losses, 
she made no permanent acquisitions at the south. An English 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 177 

fleet having met, engaged, and gained a victory over a French 
fleet in the Mediterranean. 

In America, the scene of contest was now transferred from the 
southern to the northern portion of the continent. The New 
England colonies planned and fitted out the successful expedition 
that besieged and captured Louisburgh, on the Island of Cape 
Breton. A plan for the entire conquest of Canada was formed, 
preparations were made; but it was not carried out. 

At length a treaty of peace was negotiated between the warring 
nations, and signed at Aix la Chapelle, October 7th, 1748. 
Though peace prevailed in Europe, yet so far as the French and 
English colonies were concerned, it was only nominal, never real. 
The repose and quietness they so much needed, never came. 
Both England and France immediately entered upon the system 
of mutual aggression, that finally proved so fatal to the power of 
the latter on this continent. By the terms of the treaty, England 
restored to France all the conquests she had made, and no change 
was made in the colonial possessions of either. 

Though not strictly relative to our subject, we will note a matter 
of general interest, in this connection. While England and Spain 
were at war, a proposal was made to the British Minister, in 1739, 
to tax the English colonies in America. The reply which the 
minister made is worthy repetition; and had the lesson of wisdom 
which it taught been learned and regarded by those who, a gener- 
ation after, stood in his place, how different might have been the 
annals, not only of our own region, but the entire history which 
commemorates the achievements and progress of the fortunes and 
destiny of Britain and America: — "Taxation,*' said Sir Robert 
Walpole, " That, I will leave for some of my successors who 
may have more courage than I have, and be less a friend to 
commerce than I am. It has been a maxim with me during my 
administration, to encourage the trade of the American colonies in 
the utmost latitude." 



THE TUSCARORAS. 



The remnant of this once powerful nation are located upon the 
Mountain Ridge, in the town of Lewiston. Their introduction at 
this stage of our history, is due to the chronological arrangment it 



12 



tlit HISTORY OF THE 

is intended to preserve. They were adopted by the Iroquois, and 
became the Sixth Nation of the confederacy, in 1712. 

They came originally from North Carolina — from the upper 
country, on the Rivers Neuse and Tar. In 1708 they had "fifteen 
towns, and could count twelve hundred warriors." In 1711 a 
rupture occured between them and the colonists. There was a 
question of territory ; of alledged aggression upon their lands. 
That they were aggrieved and wronged in the onset, is plainly to 
be inferred from concurrent history. Their new neighbors, the 
trespassers upon their territory, were not of a character to have a 
very nice sense of right and wrong.* With as little ceremony, and 
with as little show of justice, as was exhibited in a later period in 
the partition of Poland the "Proprietaries " of North Carolina 
commenced parcelling out their lands to the German fugitives. De 
Grapfenried, who had charge of the estabhshment of the exiles, 
accompanied by a surveyor, named Lawson, traversed the Neuse 
in their territory to determine the character of the country through 
which it flowed. This and previous demonstrations, convinced the 
Tuscaroras of the intended aggressions, and they seized the agent 
and surveyor, and conveyed them to one of their villages. Here, 
before a general council of the principal men of the various tribes, 
in which was recounted the wrongs they had suffered from the 
English,and especially their having "marked some of their territory 
into lots for settlers," the prisoners were condemned to death. The 
Indian ceremonies, a feast and festive dances, the kindling of a fire, 
were preliminary to the execution. On the morning of the appointed 
day, a new council decreed a reprieve of Graffenried, but renewed 
the sentence of Lawson. Graffenried was retained as a pris- 
oner for five weeks, and discharged upon a promise that as chieftain 
of the German emigrants, he would occupy no land without the 
consent of the Indians. 

While all this was transacting in one quarter, and a suspension of 
aggression and retribution, agreed upon; in another, hostilities had 
commenced. A band of Tuscaroras and Corees in concert, made 
a descent upon the scattered German settlers upon the Roanoke 

* In allusion to an epitaph upon the tomb stone of one of the early Governors, which 
says that "North Carolina enjoyed tranquility during his administration," Mr Bancroft 
says; — "It was the liberty of freemen in the woods; a wild independence." Gov. 
Spotswood of Virginia said, "it was a country- without any form of government." 
And a severe commentator has said ; — " In Carolina every one did what was right in 
his own eyes, paying tribute neither to God nor Caesar." 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 179 

and Pamlico Sound, carrying there, and to the Albemarle Sound, 
the utmost rigors of savage warfare. A portion of the Tuscaroras 
did not countenance this sudden resort to the knife and tomahawk. 

South Carolina came to the relief of the whites in North Caro- 
lina. A commander named Barnwell, at the head of an allied 
force of South CaroHnians, Cherokees, Creeks, Catawbas, Yamas- 
ses,* and a few North Carolinians, besieged a fort the Tuscaroras 
had constructed in Craven County. Thus situated, failing in a 
co-operation which the people of North Carolina refused from a 
feeling unfriendly to those who had brought on the war, Barnwell, 
to avoid the doubtful iBsue of a battle, negotiated a treaty of peace. 
The peace was of but short duration; in violation of its terms, the 
returning forces of Barnwell seized the inhabitants of Tuscarora 
villages, and carried them into captivity and slavery. Retaliation, 
such as before had been made, was renewed. In warlike meas- 
ures, however, the Tuscaroras were divided, Gov. Spotswood, of 
Virginia, having succeeded in making neutrals of a large portion 
of them. In Dec, 1713, the country of the Tuscaroras was again 
invaded from South Carolina by a large force of Indians, and a 
few white men, under the command of James Moore. Assembled 
in a fort on the Neuse, eight hundred of the Tuscaroras became 
the captives of the invaders. The legislature of North Carolina, 
entering into the contest with more harmony in their councils, men 
and money were raised, and the woods were patrolled by the "red 
aUies, who hunted for prisoners to be sold as slaves, or took scalps 
for a reward." 

Thus defeated and persecuted, driven from their lands and 
homes by the adverse result of a contest provoked by wrong and 
aggression; with not only the colonial authorities of North and 
South Carolina to contend with, but their own race, to gratify an 
arrant spirit of revenge, basely becoming the active allies of their 
enemies; the Tuscaroras who had remained in arms, migrated to 
New York. 

The author, thus far, has relied chiefly upon the authority of 

* Why the neighboring nations were found ready to take up arms against the Tusca- 
roras, as allies of the English, is probably explained by a recurrence to previous events. 
They had been at war with them; and in the long wars waged against the southern 
Indians, by the Confederated Five Nations of this region, the Tuscaroras had been 
allies of the northern invaders. And this was probably the affinity that led them after 
wards to seek a home at the north, instead of their being " kindred of the Iroquois," 
as Mr. Bancroft infers. 



180 HISTORY OF THE 

Mr. Bancroft, with reference to the events that preceded the 
emigration of the Tuscaroras. He is enabled to add two other 
accounts. The first was written but sixteen years after the events, 
by Wm. Boyd, of Westover, Virginia, who was one of the early 
commissioners to run a boundary line between Virginia and Mary- 
land; and was first pubhshed in 1841. The second is from 
Carroll's Historical Collections of South Carolina: — 

" These Indians were heretofore very numerous and powerful, 
making, within time of memory, at least a thousand fighting men. 
Their habitation, before the war with Carolina, was on the north 
branch of Neuse river, commonly called Connecta creek, in a 
pleasant and fruitful country. But now the few that are left of 
that nation, live on the north side of Moratuck, which is all that 
part of Roanoke below the great Falls, towards Albemarle Sound. 
Formerly there were seven towns of these savages, lying not far 
from each other, but now their number is greatly reduced. The 
trade they have had the misfortune to drive with the English has fur- 
nished them constantly with rum, which they have used so immode- 
rately, that, what with the distempers, and what with the quarrels it 
begat amongst them, it has proved a double destruction. But the 
greatest consumption of these savages happened by the war about 
twenty-five years ago, on account of some injustice the inhabitants 
of that province had done them about their lands. It was on that 
provocation they resented their wrongs a little too severely upon 
Mr. Lawson, who, under color of being Surveyor General, had 
encroached too much upon their territories, at which they were so 
enraged, that they way-laid him, and cut his throat from ear to 
ear, but at the same time released the Baron de Graffenried, 
whom they had seized for company, because it appeared plainly he 
had done them no wrong. This blow was followed by some other 
bloody actions on the part of the Indians, which brought on a war. 
wherein many of them were cut off", and many were obliged to 
flee for refuge to the Senecas, so that now there remain so few, 
that they are in danger of being quite exterminated by the Cataw- 
bas, their mortal enemies. These Indians have a very odd tradition 
amongst them, that many years ago, their nation was grown so 
dishonest, that no man could keep any of his goods, or so much as 
his loving wife to himself That, however, their God, being un- 
willing to root them out for their crimes, did them the honor to 
send them a messenger from heaven to instruct them, and set them 
a perfect example of integrity and kind behavior towards one 
another. But this holy person, with all his eloquence and sanctity 
of life, was able to make very little reformation among them. 
Some few old men did listen a little to his wholesome advice, but 
all the young fellows were quite incorrigible. They not only neg- 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 1 "^1 

lected his precepts, but derided and evil-entreated his person. At 
last, taking upon him to reprove some young rakes of the Connecta 
clan very sharply for their impiety, they were so provoked at the 
freedom of his rebukes, that they tied him to a tree, and shot him 
with arrows through the heart. But their God took instant vengcnce 
on all who had a hand in that monstrous act, by lightning from 
heaven, and has ever since visited their nation with a continued 
train of calamities, nor will he ever leave oft* punishing and wasting 
their people, till he shall have blotted every living soul of them 
out of the world. 

" Among the many errors which Hewit has committed in his 
history of Carolina, he has fallen into none more careless and 
inexcusable, than his account of this war. Dr. Ramsay, whose 
history of South Carolina is an exact copy of Hewit's, as far as 
he goes, has been guilty of the same misstatement of facts. The 
true history of this insurrection of the Indians, as collected from 
Williamson, and the authors quoted by him, is this: John 
Lawson, had in discharge of his duty, as Surveyor General of 
Carolina, marked off some of the lands, claimed by the Tuscarora 
Indians, on the Neuse river. In consequence of this encroachment 
upon their rights, added to the frequent impositions of fraudulent 
traders among them, they seized Lawson, and after a brief trial, 
put him to death. Becoming alarmed at this outrage, they hoped 
to escape punishment, by murdering, on a given day, all the colonists 
south of Albemarle Sound. Dividing themselves into small parties, 
they commenced their horrid purpose on the 22d of September, 
1711; on which memorable day, 130 persons fell a sacrifice to their 
revenge. To put down this insurrection, aid was demanded from 
South Carolina; and Colonel Barnwell, with a small party of 
whites, and a considerable body of friendly Indians, of the 
Cherokee, Creek, and Catawba tribes, was despatched for the 
purpose. This officer, after killing fifty of the hostile Indians, and 
taking 250 of them prisoners, came upon one of their forts on the 
Neuse river, in which were enclosed six hundred of the Tuscaroras. 
Instead of carrying the fort by storm, which he could easily have 
done, he concluded a peace with the enemy, who proving faithless, 
renewed hostiUties in a day or two afterwards. Colonel Barn- 
well, immediately after this treaty, returned to South Carolina. 
A second demand was made upon that state for aid, and Col. 
Moore, with forty whites, and eight hundred Ashley Indians, set 
out in the month of December, to meet the enemy. After a 

Note. — The reader will bear in mind that this remarkable tradition of the Tusca- 
roras was written one hundred and twenty years ago, at which time it was current 
among them. It is strikingly coincident with the mission and crucifixion of the 
Savior. Many able scholars and divines believe that our American Indians descended 
from the ten Lost Tribes. Is not this tradition another link in the chain tending to 
strengthen that opinion? 



182 HISTORY OF THE 

fatiguing march through deep forests and swamps, and having 
encountered much delay by snow storms, and freshets in the rivers, 
he at length came upon the hostile Indians who had thrown up 
fortifications on the Taw river, about 50 miles from its mouth. 
Though Colonel Moore found the enemy well provided with small 
arms, he soon taught them the folly of standing a seige. Advancing 
by regular approaches, he, in a few hours, completely entered their 
works, and eight hundred Tuscaroras became his prisoners. These 
were claimed by the Ashley Indians as a reward for their services, 
and were taken to South Carolina, where they were sold for slaves. 
The Swiss baron, who, Hewit says, was killed by the Indians, 
made a treaty with the Tuscaroras, and he, together with all the 
Palatines who had emigrated with him, escaped the massacre." 

The Tuscaroras, having been merged in the Iroquois confed- 
eracy, there is but little in their history since their arrival in this 
state, of a distinctive character. We in fact mostly lose sight of 
them, until the commencement of the Revolution. In that contest, 
as is well known, most of the Six Nations adhered to the English, 
and their warriors, as allies of England, under the Johnsons, 
the Butlers, and Brant, were a scourge to the border settlers 
upon the Mohawk, and the Susquehannah. A portion of the 
Oneidas and Tuscaroras were neutrals, or rather regarded as 
friendly to the colonists. There is but little mention made of 
them in all the accounts we have of the border wars. Col. 
Gansevoort, in giving an account to Gen. Sullivan, of his expe- 
dition, says: — "Agreeable to my orders, I proceeded by the 
shortest route to the Lower Mohawk Castle, passing through the 
Tuscarora and Oneida Castles, where every mark of hospitality 
and friendship was shown to the party. I had the pleasure to find 
that not the least damage nor insult was offered to any of the 
inhabitants." 

In the instruction of Gen. Sullivan to Col. Gansevoort, he 
was ordered to capture and destroy all the Indians he should find 
at the Mohawk castle, but to spare and treat as friends the Oneidas, 
tneaning, probably, to include the friendly Tuscaroras. 

Such portions of the Tuscaroras and Oneidas as had been allies 
of the English, in their flight from the total route of Gen. Sullivan. 
embarked in canoes, upon the Oneida lake, and down the Oswego 
river, coasted along up lake Ontario to the British garrison at Fort 
Niagara. They encamped during the winter of 1780 near the 
garrison, drawing a portion of their subsistence, in the form of 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 183 

rations. In the spring a part of them returned, and a part of them 
took possession of a mile square upon the Mountain Ridge, given 
them by the Senecas. The Holland Company afterwards donated 
to them two square miles, adjoining their Reservation, and in 1804 
they purchased of the company four thousand three hundred and 
twenty-nine acres; the aggregate of which several tracts, is their 
present possessions. The purchase of the Holland Company was 
made by Gen. Dearborn, then Secretary of War, in trust for 
them. The purchase money, $13,722, was a portion of a trust 
fund held by the United States, possessed in pursuance of a final 
adjustment of their claims upon North Carohna. 

They thus became residents in this region seventeen years 
previous to the advent of the Holland Company, and nineteen or 
twenty years before the settlements by the whites commenced. 

The surviving pioneer settlers at Lewiston and its neighborhood, 
bear witness to the uniform good conduct of the Tuscaroras, and 
especially to the civiUty and hospitality they extended to the early 
drovers and other adventurers upon the trail that passed through 
their villages. Previous to 1803 the traveler upon this trail, saw 
no habitation after leaving the Tonawanda village, until he arrived 
at Tuscarora. Even Indian habitations helped to relieve the 
solitude of their wilderness path. The primitive settlers found 
them kind and obliging; and good neighbors at a time they most 
needed the benefits of a good neighborhood. 

In the war of 1812 they were uniformly and decidedly in the 
American interests. Of this, and some other matters connected 
with them, it will be necessary to speak farther on in our work. 



FORT NIAGARA. 



It will be recollected that La Salle first occupied the site of 
Fort Niagara. It was his first stopping place, before he com- 
menced building the Griffin at Cayuga Creek. He intended it 
only as a trading station, but protected it with " pallisades," as the 
French did all their trading posts. In 1687, De Nonville built a 
" fort of four bastions," a place of temporary and weak defence, as 
we are to infer from the short time employed in its construction. 
For the greater portion of the time that elapsed, after its desertion 
by the remnant of the hundred troops that De Nonville left there. 



184 HISTORY OF THE 

(most of them having perished by disease),* until 1725, it would 
seem to have been a deserted post. Charlevoix visited this 
region in 1721. In a letter dated at Niagara, he says: — "Towards 
2 o'clock in the afternoon, we entered the river Niagara formed by 
the great fall, whereof I shall speak presently; or rather it is the 
river St. Lawrence, which proceeds from lake Erie, and passes 
through lake Ontario after fourteen leagues of narrows. After 
sailing three leagues, you find on the left some cabins of Iroquois, 
Tsonnonthouans, and of the Mississaugues as at Catarocoui. The 
Sieur de Joncaire, lieutenant of our troops,. has also a cabin at 
this place, to which they have beforehand given the name of fort: 
for it is intended that in time this will be changed into a great 
fortress. I here found several officers who were to return in a 
few days to Quebec." He was evidently writing from Lewiston, 
as there are other evidences that Joncaire's residence was there. 
In a note to an edition of Charlevoix's journal, published in 
London in 1761, it is remarked: — "A fort has since been built in 
the mouth of the river J^iagara on the same side, and exactly at the 
place where M. De Nonville had built one, which subsisted not 
long. There even begins to be formed a French town." The 
inference from this is, that for a considerable period after the 
desertion of the fort that De Nonville built on the present site of 
Fort Niagara, there was no French occupation there; but that 
.Toncaire's negotiations with the Senecas had reference only to 
his "cabin," at Lewiston, which, from the presence of French 
officers which Charlevoix found there, must have grown into a 
miUtary post; though if a "fort" was erected there, as Charle- 
voix says, it could have been no more than a trading post 
picketed in after the then French fashion. Mr. Bancroft says: — 
"Joncaire (in 1721) planted himself in the midst of a group of 
cabins at Lewiston, on the site where La Salle had driven a rude 
pallisade, and where De Nonville had designed to lay the founda- 
tions of a settlement." 

The two locations are here merged; an error undoubtedly, as it 
is clear that De Nonville built his fort where the fort now stands, 

* In a note which Mr. Marshall appends to his translation of De Nonville, it is 
observed: — "The cause of the sickness was ascribed to the climate, but was probably 
owing to the unwholesome food with which they were provided. They were so 
closely besieg-ed by the Iroquois that they were unable to supply themselves with fresh 
provisions. The fortress was soon after abandoned and destroyed, much to the regret 
of De Nonville." 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 185 

and JoNCAiRE his cabin at Lewiston. All that Charlevoix relates 
in the extract which follows, of the negotiations of Joncaire, the 
jealousies of the English, &c., has reference to Lewiston. It is 
possible, and probable, however, that his influence was put in 
requisition two or three years afterwards, when the French 
re-occupied the site of Fort Niagara, as mentioned in a preceding 
page, built one story of the old Mess-house, and for the first time 
made it a substantial fortress; — such as (with occasional additions 
and improvements that took place fi'om 1725 to 1759,) it was 
found at the English siege and capture. The building in 1725 was 
strongly opposed by the Senecas, as was the occupation of Oswego 
by the English governor by the Onondagas; though from the close 
of the war in 1713 the French had been far more successful in 
winning the favor of the Confederates than the English. The 
following tradition, which is common in our histories, is adopted by 
Samuel De Veaux in some sketches he made of the Falls and its 
vicinity, in 1839. The author was a resident at the fort at an 
early period, after the settlement of this region commenced, and 
the intelligence and good sense with which he is prone to make 
historical investigations, is a guarantee of the truth of the relation, 
though the author finds no authority for it in early history, but the 
general fact that the Iroquois neither yielded to the French nor the 
English any right to occupy their territory with fortifications: — "It 
is a traditionary story that the Mess-house which is a very strong 
building, and the largest in the fort, was erected by stratagem. A 
considerable, though not powerful body of French troops had 
arrived at the point. Their force was inferior to the surrounding 
Indians, of whom they were under some apprehensions. They 
obtained consent of the Indians to build a wigwam, and induced 
them, with some of their officers, to engage in an extensive hunt 
The materials were made ready, and while the Indians were 
absent, the French built. When the hunting party returned, they 
found the French had so far advanced with their work as to cover 
their faces, and to defend themselves against the savages in case 
of an attack. In progress of time it became a place of consider- 
able strength. It had its ravines; its ditches and pickets; its 
curtains and counterscarp; its covered way, draw-bridge, and 
raking batteries; its stone towers, laboratory, and magazine; its 
mess-house, barracks, and bakery, and blacksmith's shop; and for 
worship, a chapel, with a large ancient dial over the door to mark 



186 HISTORY OF THE 

the course of the sun. It was indeed a little city of itself, and for 
a long period the greatest place south of Montreal, or west of 
Albany. The fortification originally covered a space of about 
eight acres. At a few rods from the barrier gate is a burying 
ground; it was filled with the memorials of the mutability of 
human life; and over the portals of the entrance was painted the 
word 'Rest.' " 

The history of Joncaire's negotiations with the Senecas, is thus 
given in Charlevoix's letter from Niagara, referred to in a pre- 
ceding page : — 

"I have already had the honor to acquaint you, that we have 
a scheme for a settlement in this place; but in order to know 
the reason of this project, it will be proper to observe, that as 
the English pretend, by virtue of the treaty of Utrecht, to have 
sovereignty of all the Iroquoise country and by consequence, to 
be bounded on that side by lake Ontario only; now it is evident, 
that, in case we allow of their pretensions, they would then have 
it absolutely in their power to estabhsh themselves firmly in the 
heart of the French colonies, or at least entirely to ruin their com- 
merce. In order therefore, to prevent this evil, it has been 
judged proper, without, however, violating the treaty, to make a 
settlement in some place, which might secure to us the free com- 
munication between the lakes, and where the Enghsh should not 
have it in their power to oppose us. A commission has therefore 
been made to M. De Joncaire, who having, in his youth, been 
prisoner among the Tsonnonthouans, so insinuated himself into the 
good graces of those Indians, that they adopted him, so, that even 
in the hottest of their wars with us, and notwithstanding his 
remarkable services to his country, he has always enjoyed the 
privileges of his adoption. 

" On receiving the orders I have been now mentioning to you, 
he repaired to them, assembled their chiefs, and after having 
assured them that his greatest pleasure in this world would be to 
live amongst his brethren; he added, that he would much oftener 
visit them had he a cabin amongst them, to which he might 
retire when he had a mind to be private. They told him that 
they had always looked upon him as one of their own children, 
that he had only to make choice of a place to his liking in any 
part of the country. He asked no more, but went immediately 
and made choice of a spot on the banks of a river, which termi- 
nates the canton of Tsonnonthouan, where he built his cabin. The 
news of this soon reached New York, where it excited so much 
more the jealousy of the English, as that nation had never been 
able to obtain the favor granted to Sieur De Joncaire in any 
Iroquoise canton. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 187 

" They made loud remonstrances, which being seconded with 
presents, the other four cantons at once espoused their interest. 
They were, however, never the nearer their point, as the cantons 
are not only independent of each other, but also very jealous of 
this independence. It was therefore necessay to gain that of 
Tsonnonthouans, and the English omitted nothing to accomplish it; 
but they were soon sensible they should never be able to get 
JoNCAiRE dismissed from Niagara. At last they contented them- 
selves with demanding, that at least they might be permitted to 
have a cabin in the same place; but this was likewise refused them. 
' Our country is in peace, said the Tsonnonthouans, the French, and 
you will never be able to live together, without raising disturb- 
ances. Moreover, added they, it is of no consequence that 
JoNCAiRE should remain here; he is a child of the nation; he enjoys 
his right, which we are not at liberty to take from him.' 

"Now, Madame, we must acknowledge, that nothing but zeal for 
the public good could possibly induce an officer to remain in such a 
country as this, than which a wilder and more frightful is not to be 
seen. On the one side you may see just under your feet, and as it 
were at the bottom of an abyss, and which in this place is like a 
torrent by its rapidity, a whirpool formed by a thousand rocks, 
through which it with difficulty finds a passage, and by the foam 
with which it was always covered; on the other, the view is con- 
fined by three mountains placed one over the other, and whereof 
the last hides itself in the clouds. This would have been a very 
proper scene for the poets to make the Titans attempt to scale 
the heavens. In a word, on whatever side you turn your eyes, 
you discover nothing which does not inspire a secret horror. 

" You have, however, but a very short way to go, to behold a 
very different prospect. Behind those uncultivated and uninhabit- 
able mountains, you enjoy the sight of a rich country, magnificent 
forests, beautiful and fruitful hills, you breathe the purest air, under 
the mildest and most temperate climate imaginable, situated 
between two lakes, the least of which is two hundred and fifty 
leagues in circuit. 

''It is my opinion, that had we the precaution to make sure of a 
place of this consequence, by a good fortress, and by a tolerable 
colony, all the forces of the Iroquoise and the English conjoined, 
would not have been able at this time to drive us out of it, and that 
we ourselves would have been in a condition to give law to the 
former, and to hinder most part of the Indians from carrying their 
furs to the second, as they daily do with impunity. The company 
I found here with M. de Joncaire, was composed of the baron de 
LoNGUEiL, the marquis de Cavagnal, captain, son of the marquis 
de Vaudreuil, the present governor of New France; M. de 
Senneville, captain; and the Sieur de la Chauvignerie, ensign, 
and interpreter of the Iroquoise language. These gentlemen are 
about negotiating an agreement, of differences, with the canton of 



188 HISTORY OF THE 

Onontague, and were ordered to visit the settlement of the Sieur 
de JoNCAiRE, with which they were extremely well satisfied. The 
Tsonnonthouans renewed to them the promise they had formerly 
made to maintain it. This was done in a council, in which 
JoNCAiRE, as they told me, spoke with all the good sense of a 
Frenchman, whereof he enjoys a large share, and with the 
sublimest eloquence of an Iroquoise." 

[Among the residents at Fort Niagara, at an early period of its occupancy by 
American troops, was Dr. Joseph West. He was there from 1805 until 1814, at 
which time he was transferred to Philadelphia, when a declining health, that had 
induced his change of residence, terminated in death. At an early period of sale and 
settlement under the auspices of the Holland Company, he purchased a farm upon the 
lake shore, a short distance below the garrison grounds, where his aged widow and 
one surviving daughter now reside. lu 1822 or 3, Mrs. W. became the wife of 
Joseph Landon, then resident at Lockport as a canal contractor, who was an early and 
widely known tavern keeper at Buffalo. He died but a few years since. To the 
surviving daughter of Dr. West, the author is indebted for the following " Reminiscen- 
ces OK Fort Niagara." Although the sketch introduces events that belong to a later 
period, the author has thought its insertion in this connection, not inappropriate. It 
derives additional interest from having been made generally from personal observation ; 
an interest that the author will aim to mingle with his narrative, whenever it can be 
made available.] 

Fort Niagara! How many associations crowd into my mind at 
the bare mention of thy name. There I first drew my breath, and 
passed the earliest years of childhood under the eye of a kind 
father, who was taken from his young family by consumption, 
caused by a severe cold caught in the damp dungeons of the old 
Mess-house, while attending the wounded and dying, after the 
battle of Queenston. Although I have a distinct recollection of the 
appearance it then presented, it is the recollection of early years, 
which, perhaps, does not enable me to describe it with strict 
accuracy. It was then surrounded on three sides with strong 
pickets of plank, firmly planted in the ground, and closely joined 
together; a heavy gate in front, of double plank, closely studded 
with iron spike. This was enclosed by a fence, with a large gate 
just on the brow of the hill, called the barrier gate. The fourth 
side was defended by embankments of earth, under which were 
formerly barracks, aflTording a safe, though somewhat gloomy 



Note —The reader will not hesitate in concluding that Charlevoix was describing 
Lewiston • and that in the interim between the desertion of the Fort upon the present 
site, in 1698, and the re-building and re-occupancy in 1725, — immediately preceding 
the latter event, — there was a militarj' station at Lewiston, and a design to locate the 
Fort there. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 189 

retreat for the families of soldiers, but which had been abandoned, 
and the entrances closed, long before my remembrance; having 
been so infested with rattlesnakes that had made their dens within, 
that it was hardly safe to walk across the parade. 

But the Lake has done as much as time, towards changing the 
aspect of the place. At that time there was a yard some thirty or 
forty feet wide between the Mess-house and pickets; and beyond 
them a spot sufficiently wide to admit of two persons walking 
abreast; affording a delightful promenade^ But now the waves 
dash against the house, or rather did until recently, a stone wall 
having been erected, of immense strength, to prevent further 
encroachments. The old house, however, remains very much the 
same, except some slight alterations which have been made in the 
arrangements of the rooms. On its massive stone walls, time has 
yet made no ravages, although nearly two centuries* have elapsed 
since the first story was built by the French. After the English 
obtained possession, they added another story and made very 
comfortable quarters for the officers; and there has since, at 
intervals, been improvements made, but it still retains its air of 
gloomy grandeur; many gay scenes have I there witnessed, both in 
my childhood, and after an absence of long years, when I had 
returned to the home of my youth. I have seen it lit up for festive 
hours, enlivened by the smiles of beauty, the cheering voice of 
friendship, mingled with the strains of gay music; the old walls 
decorated with our country's banners; the eagle's broad wing 
chalked beneath our feet; the light arms tastefully arranged in our 
room, and manly forms ready to use them, (if needs be,) flitting 
past in the gay dance. Then have I looked back through the long 
vista of years, and thought of the multitudes who had passed 
through those old halls, until I could fancy I heard the Indian's wild 
whoop, and see their hideously painted forms, mingled with those 
of gay, chattering Frenchmen. Then came the proud Englishmen, 
in their glittering uniform; they in their turn succeeded by our own 
noble and brave army. 

My father received the appointment of Surgeon to the garrison, 
and, contrary to the present practice, was allowed to remain there 
ten years. There was a constant interchange of civilities and kind- 
nesses, between the officers of Fort Niagara and the British Fort 

* But one hundred and twenty-three years since the structure was commenced by 
the French, that our fair correspondent is describing. 



HISTORY OF THE 

(Jeorge, and the inhabitants of the Uttle town of Niagara, until the 
war of 1812 severed many ties of friendship. I well remember 
the Sunday previous to the receipt of the declaration of war; being 
at church at Niagara; on our return Gen. Brock accompanied us 
to the boat, and, taking myself and sisters by turns in his arms, 
said: — '4 must bid good bye to my little rosy cheeked Yankees;" 
then extending his hand to my father, said: — "Farewell, Doctor; 
the next time we meet it will be as enemies." Then came the 
official declaration of war, the reception of which is as vivid in 
my memory as if it had occured but last week. We were aroused 
by the Sentinel's cry, "who goes there?" — then the call to the 
Corporal of the guard to conduct the intruder to the Captain, who 
no sooner received the document from his hands than he hastened 
to consult with my father, I fancy I can see him now, seated on 
the side of the bed half dressed, with the most rueful countenance, 
saying: — "What shall we dol — we are liable to attack at any 
moment, with our fortifications out of repair. We have but one 
company, and scarcely any arms and ammunition." Sleep was 
banished from all eyes for the remainder of that night. At dawn 
of day, we heard the sound of the artificer's hammer mingled with 
those of other implements of toil. The old well in the hall, which 
had been covered up as unfit for use, was uncovered and cleaned 
out to be used in case of necessity. A heavy cannon was drawn 
into the porch; every crack and crevice in the pickets closed up; 
new embankments made, and old ones repaired; cannon mounted; 
and everything done that circumstances would admit of, to 
strengthen the garrison. Then came company after company of 
militia, pouring in from all quarters, gay with all sorts of uniform, 
and as raw and undisciplined as ever stood their ground, or ran 
from a foe. The families of the officers were obliged to vacate 
their quarters to make room for them, and we were sent into the 
country. On our way up the river, we met about one hundred of 
the Tuscarora Indians, headed by their chief, all powerful, active 
young men, decorated with their war paint and armed with toma- 
hawk and hatchet, on their way to offer their services at the fort 
We returned after an absence of four weeks to a residence near 
the fort. Father remained day and night at his post, attending to 
his professional duties, while our family were safely at the farm; 
unmolested, except occasionally by the enemy landing from their 
boats and plundering the hen-roost. At one time the voice of a 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 191 

British officer was heard, and recognizing us as acquaintances, 
observed: " there are no American officers here, and we do not 
war with women, let us get some fowls and be off." At another 
time an English vessel remained all day, making ineffectual 
attempts to reach the house with their cannon balls, but when 
near enough to do so, they could not clear the high bank of the 
lake. They did not probably wish to annoy the family, but they 
well knew that not many hours passed without some of the officers 
from the fort being there. There were a large number there on 
the day of the cannonading. 

The news of the capture of "Little York" — (now large 
Toronto) — was preceded by the report of the explosion of the 
magazine, which jarred our house, and was distinctly heard at the 
fort. It was soon followed by dispatches, bringing the gratifying 
intelligence of the capture of the town, and the sad intelligence of 
the death of the brave Gen. Pike. Then came our gallant soldiers 
who had fought so bravely under the command of Gen. Dearborn. 
Many were the wounded and dying that were brought over. 
They were conveyed to the shore by boats from the fleet, and 
encamped in a field directly opposite our house. Day and night 
we heard the groans of the sufferers, and well do I remember 
walking with my father between the rows of white tents, stopping 
in front of them while he made his professional visits. To some 
we were admitted. And, oh, what scenes of sorrow and suffering! 
Here lay a poor soldier without an arm, or the hand gone and the 
arm hanging loosely by his side; there one without a leg; there 
one with most of his face shot off. Many died, and were buried 
in the same field. Gen. Dearborn and his staff, and many others 
whose names now stand foremost in the ranks of the army, were 
quartered at our house, as every apartment at the fort, and every 
inch of ground there was occupied. As many as could find room 
in the house spread their matrasses upon the floor, (none but the 
general officers expecting the luxury of a room and bed;) the 
rest occupying the yard with their marquees much to my chagrin, 
as the continual pacing of the sentinels defaced the green sward; 
and Col. Scott, (now the gallant Commander-in-Chief of our 
Army,) even went so far as to order his tent pitched upon my 
favorite rose bush. 

[Our correspondent here gives some account of the battle of 
Queenston, and the cannonading between Fort Niagara and Fort 



192 HISTORY OF THE 

George, which is omitted, as those subjects must necessarily be 
embraced in some sketches of the local events of the war of 1812.] 

Gen. Dearborn and his staff, and many others, returned and 
took up their quarters at our house, where they remained until 
they again made an attack upon Canada. The capture of Fort 
George and Niagara followed. Soon after, owing to my father's 
continued ill health, we left the frontier, and I can recollect but 
little more that is not familiar to all readers of American history. 
In our absence, in connection with the news that the British were 
in possession of Fort Niagara, we heard that our house, with every 
other on the lines, was in ashes. 

In after years, when visiting the fort, my blood has boiled 
and my cheeks have been tinged with shame, on being shown 
the place where the British entered, and hearing a recital of the 
affair. They entered at a place where twenty men could have 
successfully opposed hundreds, had the commander been at his 
post. But he had gone home that night, (his family living about 
two miles off in the country,) and laid down by the fire for a 
few moments with his clothes on, his horse being saddled at the 
door ready for an immediate return. — He was awakened by the 
firing, and springing upon his horse, lost no time in reaching the 
fort, where he was met by a British soldier who immediately took 
him prisoner.- It is true that he might not by his presence have 
saved the fort, but he would have saved his reputation, a court- 
martial, and dismissal from the army. 



EARLY NOTICES OF NIAGARA FALLS. 



It is difficult to conclude who was the first European that saw 
Western New York, or the Falls of Niagara. There are some 
accounts from which it may be inferred that Champlain was upon 
lake Ontario at different times, from 1614 to 1640, and Le Roux 
in 1628, but no hint occurs in connection, that they visited its 
southern shore. French traders are said to have visited the Falls 
as early as 1610, '15, but there are no authentic accounts to confirm 
the statement. Joseph De La Roche Dallion, a Franciscan 
Father, a missionary of ardent religious zeal and enterprise, was in 
this region as early as the year 1626 or '7, and was probably the 
first European adventufer who saw Western New York, but 
there is no evidence that he visited the Falls. He made but a 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 193 

short stay, the severity of the winter, and the hostiUty of the 
Iroquois to his presence and mission, obhging him to retreat. 
There are no reliable accounts of any further attempts to explore 
this region until 1641. {JCf^ See Father Allemont's account of 
Brebeuf and Chaumanot's visit, page 65. Ducreux, the author 
of " Historiae Canadensis," has noted the Falls on a map dated 
1660, but does not allude to them in his narrative. * The earliest 
dates which have been discovered, engraved upon the rocks at the 
Falls, are of 1711, 1712 1726, and 1745. There is a date 1745, 
on a tree on Goat Island, which shows that the French must have 
had access to the Island while occupants of this region. 

Hennepin, who, as will have been seen, was with La Salle at 
the primitive commercial advent upon the Lakes in 1688, has given 
us the earliest description of the Falls that has found its way into 
our histories; if indeed it is not the earliest description of them, in 
any form, extant, f He thus describes them: — 

"Betwixt the lakes Ontario and Erie, there is a vast and pro- 
digious cadence of water which falls down after a surprising and 
astonishing manner, insomuch that the universe docs not afford its 
parallel. 'Tis true, Italy and Switzerland boast of some such 
things, but we may well say that they are sorry patterns, when 
compared with this of which we now speak. At the foot of this 
horrible precipice, we meet with the river Niagara, which is not 
above a quarter of a league broad, but is wonderfully deep in 
some places. It is so rapid above this descent, that it violently hur- 
ries down the wild beasts while endeavoring to pass it to feed on 
the other side, and not being able to withstand the force of its 
current, which inevitably casts them headlong above six hundred 
feet high. 

"This wonderful downfall is compounded of two great cross- 
streams of water, and two falls into an isle sloping along the middle 
of it. The waters which fall from this horrible precipice, do foam 

* The gfenerally correct and indefatigable gleaner of history, antiquarian and 
naturalist, Dr. Barton, of Philadelphia, is in error in concluding "that the Falls were 
•'described and delineated" by Frenchmen, as early as 1638. 

t The following is the title of his book: "A new discovery of a vast country in 
America, extending above four thousand miles between New France and New Mexico, 
with a description of the great Lakes, Cataracts, Rivers, Plants and Animals; also the 
manners, customs, and languages of the several native Indians, and the advantages of 
commerce with those different nations, with a continuation giving an account of the 
attempts of the Sieur De La Salle upon the mines of St. Barbe, &c. The taking of 
Quebec by the English ; with the advantages of a shorter cut to China and Japan. 
Both pans illustrated with maps and figures, and dedicated to His Majestv K. William. 
By L. Hennepin, now resident in Holland. To which is added several new discoverk* 
in North America, not published in the French edition. London, 1698." 
13 



194 HISTORY OF THE 

and boil after the most hideous manner imaginable, making an 
outrageous noise, more terrible than that of thunder; for when 
the wind blows out of the south, their dismal roaring may be heard 
more than fifteen leagues off. 

" The river Niagara having thrown itself down this incredible 
precipice, continues its impetuous course for two leagues together, 
to the great rock, above mentioned, with an inexpressible rapidity; 
but having past that, its impetuosity relents, gliding along more 
gently for two other leagues, till it arrives at lake Ontario or 
Frontenac. 

"From the great fall into this rock, which is to the west of the 
river, the two banks of it are so prodigious high, that it would 
make one tremble to look steadily over the water, rolling along 
with a rapidity not to be imagined. Were it not for this vast 
Cataract, which interrupts navigation, they might sail with barks or 
greater vessels, more than 450 leagues, crossing the lake of Hurons, 
and reaching even to the further end of lake Illinois; which two 
. lakes we may easily say are little seas of fresh vv^ater. 

"After these waters have thus discharged themselves into this 
gulf, they continue their course as far as the three mountains, 
which are on the east of the river, and the great rock wiiich is 
on the west, and lifts itself three fathoms above the waters, or 
thereabouts." 

The exaggerated account of La Hontan, follows next in order of 
time. [[Xy^ See page 157.] In 1721, Charlevoix gave a des- 
cription of the Falls, in connection with his account of the diplo- 
macy of JoNCAiRE in obtaining permission to fix his residence at 
Lewiston. His is the first description made with any considerable 
degree of accuracy. ' 

"The officers having departed, I ascended those Mountains,* in 
order to visit the famous fall of Niagara, above which I was to take 
water; this is a journey of three leagues, though formerly five; 
because the way then lay by the other, that is, the west of the 
river, and also because the place for embarking lay full two leagues 
above the Fall. But there has since been found, on the left, at the 
distance of a half a quarter of a league from this cataract, a 
creek t where the current is not perceivable, and consequently a 
place where one may take water without danger. My first care 
after my arrival, was to visit the noblest cascade perhaps in the 
world; but I presently found the Baron La Hontan had committed 
such a mistake with reference to its height and figure, as to give 

* The "Three Mountains" of Hennepin, the "Hills" of La Hontan; at Lewiston. 
t Gill Creek. 



* 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 195 

grounds to believe he had never seen it. It is certain that if you 
measure its height by that of the three mountains, you are obUged 
to climb to get at it, it does not come much short of v^^hat the map 
of M. Delisle makes it; that is, six hundred feet, having certainly 
gone into this paradox either on the faith of baron La Hontan or 
Father Hennepin; but after I arrived at the summit of the third 
mountain, 1 observed that in the space of three leagues, which I had 
to walk before I came to this piece of water, though you are some- 
times obliged to ascend, you must still descend still more, a circum- 
stance to which travellers seem not to have sufficiently attended. 
As it is impossible to approach it but upon one side only, and conse- 
quently to see it, excepting in profile or side-ways, it is no easy 
matter to measure its height with instruments. It has, however, 
been attempted by means of a pole tied to a long line, and after 
repeated trials it has been found only one hundred and fifteen or 
one hundred and twenty feet high. But it is impossible to be sure 
that the pole has not been stopped by some projecting rock; for 
although it was always drawn up wet, as well as the end of the 
line to which it was tied, this proves nothing at all, as the water 
which precipitates itself from the mountain, rises very high in foam. 
For my own part, after having examined it on all sides, where it 
could be viewed to the greatest advantage, I am inclined to think 
we cannot allow it less than one hundred and forty or fifty feet. 

''As to its figure, it is in the shape of a horse shoe, and it is 
about four hundred paces in circumference; it is divided in two, 
exactly in the centre, by a very narrow Island, half a quarter of 
a league long. It is true these parts very soon unite; that on my 
side, and which I could only have a side view of, has several 
branches which project from the body of the cascade, but that 
which I viewed in front, appearing to me quite entire. The Baron 
de La Hontan mentions a torrent, which, if this author has not 
invented it, must certainly fall through some channel on the melting 
of the snows. 

'' You may easily guess, Madame, that a great way below this 
fall, the river still retains strong marks of so violent a shock, 
accordingly it becomes only navigable three leagues below, and 
exactly at the place where .Toncaire has chosen for his residence. 
It should by right, be equally unnavigable above it, since the river 
falls perpendicularly the whole space of its breadth. But besides 
the Island, which divides it into two, several rocks which ar6 
scattered up and down above it, abate much of the rapidity of the 
stream; it is notwithstanding so very strong, that ten or twelve 
Cutaways trying to cross over to the Island to shun the Iroquoise 
who were in pursuit of them, were drawn into the precipice, in 
spite of all their efforts to preserve themselves. 

•' I have heard say that the fish that happen to be entangled in 
the current, fall dead into the river, and that the Indians of those 
parts were considerably advantaged by them; but I saw nothing 



196 HISTORY OF THE 

of this sort. I was also told that the birds that fly over were 
sometimes caught in the whirlwind formed by the violence of the 
torrent. But 1 observed quite the contrary, for I saw small birds 
flying very low, and exactly over the fall, which yet cleared their 
passage very well. 

*' This sheet of water falls upon a rock, and there are two 
reasons which induce me to believe that it has either found, or 
perhaps in process of time hollowed out a cavern of considerable 
depth. The first is, that it is very hollow, resembling that of 
thunder at a distance. You can scarce hear it at M. de Jon- 
caire's, and what you hear in this place, may possibly be that of 
the whirlpools, caused by the rocks, which fill the bed of the river 
as far as this. And so much the rather, as above the cataract you 
do not hear it near so far. The second is, that nothing has ever 
been seen again that has once fallen over it, not even the wrecks 
of the canoes of the Cutaways, I mentioned just now. Be that as 
it will, Ovid gives us the description of another cataract, situated 
according to him in the delightful valley of Tempe. I will not 
pretend that the country of Niagara is as fine as that, though I 
believe its cataract much the noblest of the two." 

"Besides, I perceive no mist above it, but from behind, at a 
distance, one would take it for smoke, and there is no person who 
would not be deceived with it, if he came in sight of the isle, 
without having been told before hand that there was so surprising 
a cataract in the place." 

In reflecting upon these early advents to this now great center 
of attraction, the mind is prone to wander back and associate with 
it the vast wilderness, its silence only broken by the ceaseless roar 
— in which was but occasionally mingled the sound of human 
voices — the war whoop, the festive shout of the Iroquois, or the 
stranger sounds of the Gallic dialect, uttered by the trader or 
missionary, in their unfrequent visits. The European adventurer, 
as Mr. Greenwood beautifully expresses it: — "stood alone with 
God!" Yes, alone! communing with the Great Architect, in the 
presence of the triumphs of His Omnipotence! where, gathering 
the waters of vast inland seas, it would seem that He 

* * * "Poured them from His hollow haud," 

" And spoke in that loud voice which seemed to him 

Who dwelt in Patmos for his Savior's sake, 

'The sound of many waters;' and had bade 

The flood to chronicle the ages back 

And notch His centuries in the eternal rocks." * 

* Brainard. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. U>" 

The early adventists were men of devout minds, and upon 
errands of devotion. How, when the mighty scene was first 
presented, must they have anticipated the sublime conceptions of 
the poet in an after age: — 

" Deep calleth unto deep. And what are we, 
Tliat hear the question of that voice subhme?" 

•^ » * * # • 

" Yea, what is all the riot man can make 
In his short life, to thy unceasing roar! 
And yet, bold babbler, what art thou to Him 
Who drowned a world and 'heaped the waters far 
Above its loftiest mountains? — a light wave 
That breaks and whispers of its Maker's might." 

Theirs must have been the thoughts that in after years found 
utterance in the verse of another of the gifted in the annals of 
American Hterature; — theirs, the feelings that were embodied in 
her exclamation of mingled wonder, awe, and chastened admiration : 

•'Flow on forever in thy glorious robe 
Of terror and of beauty ! God hath set 
His rainbow on thy forehead, and the cloud 
Mantled around thy feet, and He doth give 
The voice of thunder power to speak of Him 
Eternally — bidding the lip of man 
Keep silence, and upon thy rocky altar pour 
Incense of awe-struck praise." * 

How wild and magnificent this panorama of the wilderness, as 
it must have appeared to those solitary wanderers! It was 
unheralded; no traveller had spread before them maps or descrip- 
tions; the sound of its rushing waters, booming over the unbroken 
forest, and assailing their ears as they were leaving the "Lake of 
Frontenac," and entering the "Streights of Herrie Lake," first 
attracted their attention. Approaching the "great waterfall" by 
stealth — watchful of the poisonous reptile that coiled in their path 
— fearful of the Iroquois that lurked in the dark surrounding 
forests — stunned by the sounds that fell heavier and heavier upon 
the ear, as they approached their source; — they emerged from 
behind the forest curtain, and the scene in all its lonely, primeval 
grandeur, like a flood of light, burst upon their view! It was 
Nature in her retreat. Hid away in the bosom of this then vast 

* Mrs. Sigourney, 



198 HISTORY OF THE 

wilderness, before unknown to any portion of the civilized world, 
was one of the mightiest achievements of Creative Power. 

How primitive the scene ! All but the roar of the mighty 
cataract was hushed silence. That, rioted in a monopoly of 
sound, as does the rolling thunder in the heavens, when, as the 
voice of God, it chastens all things else to stillness and humility. 

At each crackling beneath their footsteps, the wild beast started 
from his lair in the ever-green shades that crown the lofty 
palisades of rock; — the timid deer, as if transfixed, gazed for a 
moment upon strange faces, and bounded to his forest retreat; the 
eagle, frightened from his eyrie, sailed away, in an atmosphere of 
spray and fleeting cloud, the tints of the rainbow that spans the 
deep abyss, reflected from his glossy wing. Onward! Onward! 
came the avalanche of waters! Ages have passed, — all but that 
has changed! CiviHzation, the arts, the highest achievements of 
genius, human progress, are placing their triumphs by its side, and 
claiming a divided admiration. Tens of thousands, gathered from 
almost every portion of the habitable ^lobe, come annually, 
pilgrims and sojourners, to gaze upon the works of God, and the 
feebler yet interesting consummations of Art. How vividly, do 
thoughts, contrasts of the past and present, cluster around this spot ! 



The general narrative, which has been interrupted by the intro- 
duction of distinct local topics, will be resumed. 

The treaty of Aix la Chapelle, as other treaties, had left matters 
of dispute between England and Fi'ance unsettled. Either nation 
was at liberty, whenever its interests might be promoted by so 
doing, to revive any of the vexed and difficult questions of 
discovery, boundary and occupancy, that had frequently involved 
them .and their distant colonies, in war, disasters and ruin. Their 
contending armies had enjoyed but a short armistice — hostilities 
on the extended frontier of their colonial settlements had but just 
ceased — the conquests that had been made, had hardly been 
surrendered and re-occupied — when the French began a system 
of encroachments, which they intended should result in confining 
the English colonies within the comparatively narrow limits 
between the Alleghanies and the Atlantic, and secure to themselves 
undisputed possession of all the territory west and south-west, 
around the Lakes, and in the vallies of the Mississippi and its 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 199 

tributaries. The warlike preparations and collisions that occurred 
during the two years immediately preceding the public declaration 
of war on the part of England, in 1756. were the immediate 
consequences of the far-reaching policy deliberately adopted ana 
steadily pursued by France. Both England and France were 
anxious to gain the good will and aid, alliance and trade, of the 
Indian nations yet occupying and owning the contested dominions. 
Their respective agents made use of every means to win their 
favor, make treaties of friendship with them, and fill their minds 
with hatred and enmity; — induce them to believe that either one 
nation or the other was their exclusive friend and protector. The 
Ir^dians regarded these two European nations as perpetual enemies, 
for they were almost always wrangling at the council fires, 
interrupting each other's trade, or making the battle field the 
arbitrer of their disputes. They were never united against the 
Indians as a common enemy; and the Indians, in turn, generally 
sided with the one that offered the best terms. Especially was 
this the case with the Iroquois; the French missionaries, and the 
French faculty generally, of adapting themselves to wild forest 
life, and the habits and customs of the Indians, gave them decidedly 
the vantage ground among the less independent and politic nations 
of the West. If the Indians attacked the frontier settlements, or 
committed any acts of hostility, one nation was sure to charge it to 
the instigation of the other, and hold the implicated party 
responsible. Out of this state of things, and out of the desire 
which both had to maintain their rival and irreconcilable claims — 
to strengthen their influence and ascendency — arose mutual 
suspicions, distrusts, jealousies, and open acts of aggression. Both 
became watchful and vigilant that one should not obtain the 
advantage of the other. Each nation had formed a firm determi- 
nation to defend what it regarded its just rights, and was secretly, 
though efficiently, preparing itself for the great struggle which was 
to decide the fate of their colonial dependencies in North America. 
Both were ambitious to extend and widen their western boundaries, 
and consolidate the power by which they held and governed them. 
When both were so sensitive and watchful, it needed only a slight 
occasion to terminate a peace which gave any thing but repose 
and quietness to the parties that professed to observe it; and to 
cause a war which involved the destiny of the contestants in its 
issues, and the possession of empires in its fortunes. 



200 HISTORY OF THE 

The seizure of English fur traders by the French; the estabUsh- 
ment, by the latter, of military posts on the Ohio, and refusal to 
surrender them on the demand of the colonial authorities, in 1753; 
the expedition conducted by Washington* to the western frontiers 
of Virginia, — and the skirmishes he had with the French and 
Indians in the Great Meadows, in 1754; the extensive preparations 
made by both parties for active campaigns ; the expeditions planned 
by the EngUsh against forts Du Quesne, Crown Point and Niagara; 
the forcible expulsion of the French from Nova Scotia; the repulse 
and death of Col. Ephraim Williams, by Baron Dieskau, and 
the final overthrow of the latter by Sir William Johns-on, at the 
battle of lake George; the occupation and fortification of Ticon- 
deroga by the French, in 1755, were the principal events that took 
place in the wide and extended field of operations, before the two 
contending nations, with their savage allies, began to struggle in 
earnest for the undivided possessions they had respectively claimed, 
within the more immediate region of our researches. 

* The venerated name of the Father of his Country, is here first incident to our 
narrative. The reader who has not had the opportunity of admiring Mr. Bancroft's 
beautiful introduction of it into his pages, will thank us for embracing it in a note. 
Ho has seized upon an earlier occasion, and other than a military advent, but his 
admirable episode is so framed as to admit of being appropriately blended with the 
events we are tracing: — "At the verj' time of the congress of Aix la Chapelle, the 
woods of Virginia sheltered the youthful George Washington, the son of a widow. 
Born by the side of the Potomac, beneath the roof of a Westmoreland farmer, almost 
from infancy his lot had been the lot of an orphan. No Academy had welcomed him to 
its shades, no College crowned him with its honors: — to read, to write, to cypher — these 
had been his degrees in knowledge. And now at sixteen years of age, in quest of an 
honest maintenance, encountering intolerable toil; cheered by being able to write to a 
school -boy friend, * Dear Richard, a doubloon is my constant gain every day, and 
sometimes six pistoles;' 'himself, his own cook, having no spit but a forked stick, no 
plate but a large chip;' roaming over the spurs of the AUeghanies, and along the banks 
of the Shenandoah; alive to nature, and sometimes 'spending the best of the day in 
admiring the trees and the richness of the land;' among skin clad savages, their 
scalps and rattles, or uncouth emigrants 'that would never speak English,' rarely 
sleeping in a bed; holding a bear skin a splendid couch; glad of a resting place at 
night upon a little hay, straw or fodder, and often camping in the forests, where the 
place nearest the fire was a happy luxury; — this stripling surveyor in the woods, with no 
companion but his unlettered associates, and no implements of service but his compass 
and chain, contrasted strongly with the imperial magnificence of the congress of Aix 
la Chapelle. And yet God had selected, not Kaunitz nor Newcastle, not a monarch of 
the house of Hapsburgh, nor of Hanover, but the Virginia stripling, to give an 
impulse to human affairs, and as far as events can depend upon an individual, 
had placed the rights and destinies of countless millions in the keeping of the 
widow's son." 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 201 

Governor Shirley of Massachusetts, who commanded the 
English forces destined to attack forts Niagara and Frontenac, 
after much delay, embarrassment and a tedious march through 
the wilderness, arrived at Oswego, the 21st of August, 1755. 
Having ascertained that the garrison in the fort was reduced to 
about sixty French soldiers, and one hundred Indians, but was in 
daily expectation of reinforcements, the British General made 
every exertion in his power to attack it immediately. But his 
scanty means of transportation, the desertion of batteau men, the 
scarcity of wagons on the Mohawk river, and the desertion of 
sledge men at the great carrying place, the slow and lingering 
conveyance of provisions and military stores, occupied about four 
weeks. The council of war that Gov. Shirley assembled on the 
18th of September, recommended that an attempt be made on Fort 
Niagara. Six hundred regulars were drafted for that object. 
The artillery and military stores were first put on board the Sloop 
Ontario, part of the provision on another vessel, and the remainder 
were to be transported in small row boats. The long and drench- 
ing rains that now set in, rendered it dangerous to attempt a 
venture upon the lake before the 26th of the month. Orders to 
embark were promptly given, but it was found impossible to 
execute them. Winds from the west blew violently, followed by 
a rain which lasted thirteen days. Sickness and disease then 
rapidly began to diminish the strength and numbers of the army, 
and the Indians to desert. The season for active operations was 
now far gone. Another council of war was held on the 27th, 
which resulted in a determination to put off the expedition until 
next year. Col. Mercer was left at Oswego with a garrison of 
seven hundred men, with orders to erect two new forts for the 
better protection of the place. Gov. Shirley returned with the 
rest of his army. 

Thus this expedition, like the others that had been planned, and 
were to be carried on by the skill and bravery, experience and 
prudence of the combined colonial and English forces, ended 
in disaster and failure; to be followed by a brilliant triumph 
of the arms of France, when she should again make this place the 
scene of bloody conflict, level to the ground the battlements which 
England had raised, under the brave but finally unfortunate Marquis 
de Montcalm. 

Though open hostilities had existed for two years, war was not 



2©S HISTORY OF THE 

formally declared by Great Britian until the 17th of May, 1756. 
France not only persevered in her encroachments, but sent out a 
large armament with troops and munitions of war. Every hope 
that the questions of dispute could be amicably settled was now 
gone. The court of France endeavored to conceal and cover 
their real designs by the most solemn assurances of pacific senti- 
ments and intentions. To do this more effectually, their ambassador 
at the court of St. James was deceived, and while he was instructed 
to give the most positive pledges of the friendship of France, orders 
were at the same time transmitted to the French authorities in 
Canada still to strengthen and hold their posts at all hazards. 
France, true to her policy of erecting a barrier beyond which 
English territorial authority should not go in North America, was 
pursuing a similar policy at the same time in India. It soon became 
inevitable that the fortunes of war must decide the destinies of both 
nations, so far, at least, as concerned their colonial possessions on 
the eastern portions of this continent. 

Montcalm, the successor of Dieskau, as commander in chief 
of the French forces of Canada, led an army of five thousand 
men, composed of regulars, militia and Indians, against Oswego, 
and invested the English fort there. On the 12th. of August, 
at midnight, after the completion of every necessary arrangement, 
with thirty-two pieces of artillery besides howitzers and mortars, 
he opened a terrible cannonade from his trenches. The small 
amount of ammunition the garrison had, having been exhausted, 
Col. Mercer, the commanding officer, spiked his guns, abandoned 
the fort, retreated across the river without the loss of a single 
man, and took position in Little Fort Oswego. Montcalm 
immediately entered the deserted fort, and from it he poured a 
destructive fire upon the English, during which Col. Mercer was 
killed. Dismayed at the loss of their commanding officer, defeated 
in an effort to open a communication with Fort George, (situated 
about four miles up the river, under the command of Gen. Schuy- 
ler,) the English offered to capitulate on the 14th, on condition 
that they should not be plundered by the Indians, but treated with 
humanity. The two regiments that surrendered amounted to 
about one thousand four hundred men. A large quantity of mili- 
tary stores and provisions, one hundred and twenty-one pieces of 
artillery, and fourteen mortars, fell into the hands of the French. 
As soon as Montcalm was in possession of both forts, he ordei-ed 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 203 

them to be demolished and destroyed, in the presence of his 
enemies and allies. Then was enacted a tragedy, as contrary to 
every sentiment of humanity, as it was in violation of the faith 
that had been pledged to prevent it. Montcal3i, against his 
promise and treaty, gave twenty of his prisoners to the custody 
and tortures of his savage allies, as victims for an equal number 
of Indians that had been killed during the siege. The rest of 
the prisoners were also exposed to the insults of the French 
Indian allies. 

When these calamitous events became known, the British 
authorities abandoned all plans of further offensive operations 
that season, which was then nearly passed. The high and splen- 
did anticipations, that the campaign would end in a series of bril- 
liant achievments, were all disappointed, and a feeling of gloom 
and despondency followed, in the English colonies. 

Thus was struck down the red cross of St. George, to float no 
more over these chequered scenes of desolation and conflict, where 
many a brave and gallant youth found an untimely grave, until it 
waved triumphantly over the then entire northern portion of the 
continent that rallied around a hostile standard — each of which, 
ere long, in its turn — even before that generation passed away — 
when friends turned oppressors, and enemies became allies — was 
to give place to another banner, that was not then in existence, — its 
emblematic stars had not yet risen above the horizon of empires; — 
but which is now the banner of a nation great and glorious, alike 
in the arts of war, and the far nobler arts of peace. 

The victories of the French gave them command of lake 
Champlain and lake George. Their success at Oswego confirmed 
their control over the western Lakes, and the valley of the 
Mississippi. Their occupation of Fort Du Quesne, enabled them 
to cultivate the friendship, and continue their influence over the 
Indians west of the Alleghanies. Their line of communication 
reached from Canada to Louisiana, and they were masters of the 
vast territories that spread out beyond it. Their supremacy upon 
this continent was now at its zenith; henceforward all change 
tended to decline and final dispossession. The time speedily came, 
when the victors were to be vanquished, and their dominions ruled 
by their enemies. 

In 1758, William Pitt, afterwards Earl of Chatham, was at the 
head of the British ministry. Soon every department of the 



204 HISTORY OF THE 

public service felt the animating influence of his commanding and 
lofty spirit. His energetic and vigorous measures inspired hope 
and confidence at home and abroad. The brave soldiers who had 
been so often humbled in defeat, kindled with ardor for an 
opportunity to assert their title to honor and fame, and have a 
share in the glorious deeds which the future promised. Incompe- 
tent commanders were re-called, and officers of military genius and 
experience succeeded then** Three expeditions were planned. 
Louisburg was again captured. The French deserted Fort Du 
Quesne on the approach of an English army. That against 
Crown Point and Ticonderoga alone was defeated, and relinquished; 
but out of its failure arose the successful expedition against Fort 
Frontenac, at the suggestion of Colonel Bradstreet, who com- 
manded it. 

At the head of about three thousand men, with eight cannon and 
three mortars, Col. Bradstreet left the camp of the defeated 
army, which had retreated to its former position on the south side 
of lake George. Arriving at Oswego, he lost no time in embarking 
his men. Crossing the lake, he landed about one mile from the fort, 
on the evening of August 25th.* He urged forward his prepa- 
rations for an attack with such rapidity, that within two days, he 
opened his batteries so near the French works as to make every 
discharge produce an effect. The French commander; deserted by 
his Indian allies, and satisfied that his capture was inevitable, 
surrendered at discretion, on the 27th. One hundred and ten 
prisoners, nine vessels, sixty cannon, sixteen mortars, a large 
number of light arms, great quantities of military stores, provisions, 
and merchandise, were taken. The fort was dismantled and 
demolished. The vessels and such other things as could not be 
carried away, were destroyed. Col. Bradstreet then marched 
his detachment back and joined the main army. 

The success of this expedition aided that which was marching 



* Fort Frontenac is thus described in the "Journals of Major Robert Rogers," an 
officer justly distinguished as a daring and skillful commander of a company of 
" Rangers," who visited it soon after it was taken by the English: 

" This fort was square faced, had four bastions with stone, and was near three- 
quarters of a mile in circumference. Its situation was very beautiful, the banks of the 
river presenting, on every side, an agreeable landscape, with a fine prospect of lake 
Ontario, which was distant about a league, interspersed with many Islands that were 
well wooded, and seemingly beautiful. The French had formerly a great trade at this 
fort with the Indians, it being erected on purpose to prevent their trading with the 
English, but it is now totally destroyed." 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. '-iOo 

against Du Quesne. French re-inforcements from Niagara and 
Frontenac, could not now come. Conscious of their inability to 
dispute successfully the possession of the fort, with a force so form- 
idable as that of the English, the French voluntarily abandoned it, 
silently passing down the Ohio river. With them also departed the 
powerful influence they had long exercised over the surrounding 
Indian nations, never again to be revived. No sooner was the 
British flag floating over the embattlements France had raised, 
than they called councils, and entered into treaties of peace and 
alliance with the British. The Indians said that the Great Spirit, 
having deserted the French, would no more protect them, and 
would be angry with all who helped them. The French line of 
communication between the northern and southern extremities of 
their possessions was now eflTectually broken. The reverse which 
took place in the fortunes of the contending nations, was not more 
striking, than was the change of feeling manifested by the different 
parties, at the close of the campaign. 

In 1759, Major General Amherst succeeded as commander of 
the British forces in North America. The success which had 
attended the British arms, encouraged the adoption of measures 
which contemplated the entire conquest of Canada. The three 
strong positions still held by the French were all to be attacked 
at the same time. General James Wolf, who had distinguished 
himself at Louisburg, was to besiege Quebec. General Amherst 
was to march against Ticonderoga, and Crown Point, and after 
taking those places, cross lake Champlain, and join Wolf. Gene- 
ral Prideaux, accompanied by Sir William Johnson, was to 
command the expedition against Fort Niagara. General Stanwix 
commanded a detachment, which was to watch and guard lake 
Ontario, and reduce the remaining French posts on the Ohio. 

Early in the spring, Gen. Amherst estabUshed his head-quarters 
at Albany, where he concentrated his forces about the end of May. 
The summer was well advanced before he was able to cross lake 
George. He reached Ticonderoga, July 22d. When he was 
ready to open his batteries on the French, who appeared deter- 
mined to defend this position, he suddenly discovered that after 
blowing up their magazines and doing all the injury they could, the 
enemy had retreated during the night, to Crown Point. The 
British took possession of the fort without firing a gun, the next 
day. After reparing its damaged fortifications. Gen. Amherst 



206 HISTORY OF THE 

proceeded to Crown Point. On his approach the French retired 
before him, and took up a position on the Isle Aux Noix, at the 
northern end of lake Champlain. At that point the French force 
was about three thousand five hundred strong. They had a large 
train of artillery and four armed vessels. Gen. Amherst was 
anxious to dislodge them, but this could not be done without a naval 
force able to meet the enemy's. He hastily built two boats, and 
succeeded in destroying two belonging to the French. The season 
was now far gone. In October he fixed his winter quarters at 
Crown Point, and employed the time in repairing the works there 
and at Ticonderoga. 

The arrangements for the expedition against Fort Niagara 
having been completed, General Prideaux, with an army composed 
of European and Provincial troops and Indians, marched to Oswego, 
coasted along the southern shore of lake Ontario, and without 
opposition landed at the mouth of the Four Mile creek on the 6th 
of July. 

The author derives the following minute accounts of the invest- 
ment and final capture of Fort Niagara, from files of the Maryland 
Gazette, published at Baltimore at that early period of newspaper 
enterprise in the American colonies, that have been perserved in the 
archives of the Maryland Historical Society. The preceding 
accounts, it will be observed, are from English sources, in the form 
of letters from correspondents, and items of news by the editor, 
derived either from New York and Philadelphia papers, or from 
correspondents in those cities. The heading to the account that 
follows, is sufficiently explanatory of the source from which it is 
derived. Taken altogether, the reader will probably conclude that 
it is a much better account of this locally important military enter- 
prise, than has before been incoi'porated in history. The author 
adopts the accounts as he finds them in the ancient newspaper files, 
believing that a cotemporary relation of the events will be far 
more interesting to the reader, than any he could derive from other 
sources: 

» Niagara, July 25th, 1759 
*' Yesterday morning a party of French and Indians, consisting of 1500, of which 
400 were Indians, about 8 o'clock, came upon our right, where a breast-work was 
thrown up, as we had intelligence of their coming ; and as ten of our people were 
crossing the lake above, they began to fire on them, which gave our people time to get 
all their piquets, the 46th regiment, part of the 44th, 100 New Yorkers, 600 Indians, 
reiady to oppose them: we waited and received their fire five or six times, before our 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 201 

people returned it, which they did at about 30 yards distance, then jumped over their 
breast-work, and closed in with them, upon which they immediately gave way and 
broke; their Indians left them, and for a while we made a vast slaughter. The whole 
being defeated, the prisoners were brought in, among which were above 16 or 17 
officers, several of distinction, and about 60 or 70 men; the whole field was covered 
with their dead. After the General took the names of all the officers taken, he sent 
Major Harvey, by the desire of Monsieur D'Aubrey, the commanding officer of the 
whole parly, to the commanding officer of the fort, who disputed his having them, and 
kept Major Harvey in the fort, and sent an officer to the General; when they found 
it was true, and all their succors cut off, they began to treat on conditions of surrender, 
which continued till near 8 o'clock in the evening before they were concluded; 
however, our grenadiers, with the train, marched in this morning, and the whole 
garrison was surrendered to Sir William Johnson, who succeeded to the command 
after the death of General Prideaux. 

" The ordnance stores found in the Fort at Niagara when Gen. Johnson took 
possession of it, were two 14 pounders; 19 twelve pounders; one eleven pounder; 
7 eight pounders; 7 six pounders; 2 four pounders; 5 two pounders — all iron: 1300 
round 12 pound shot; 40,000 pound musket ball; 200 weight of match; 500 hand 
grenades; 2 cohorns and 2 mortars, mounted; 300 bill-axes [?]; 500 hand hatchets; 
100 axes; 300 shovels; 400 pick-axes; 250 mattocks; [hoes]; 54 spades: 12 whip- 
saws, and a considerable number of small arms, swords, tomahawks, scalping-knives, 
cartouch-boxes, &c. 

A letter from Niagara, dated July 25th, has the following particulars: — 

" Your old friend Sir William Johnson, has gained immortal honor in this affair. 
The army have the highest opinion of him, and the Indians adore him, as his conduct 
has been steady and judicious; he has carried on the siege with spirit. The Mohawks 
have done wonders, serving in the trenches and eveiy place where Sir William was." 

We are informed, that upon Gen. Amherst's receiving the news of the death of 
Brigadier Gen. Prideaux, he immediately appointed Brigadier General Gage, of the 
Light Infantrj', commander-in-chief of the forces before Niagara; and that Gen. 
Gage was at Albany, when the orders from Geu. Amherst came to him; but it was 
impossible for him to reach Niagara before it surrendered to Sir William Johnson. 
Col. Haldiman, we are told, embarked from Oswego for Niagara, the very day it 
surrendered, the 24th ult. 

All the prisoners taken at Niagara, amounting in the whole to about 800, are coming 
down to this city [i. e. New York], and are on their way; so that we may expect them 
every day. The women and children taken in the fort. Gen. Johnson has sent to 
Montreal, we are told. 

From Oswego we have the following interesting intelligence, dated July 28th, 1759: 

"This day Lieutenant MoNcRiEF, aid-de-camp to the late Gen. Prideaux, arrived 
here from Niagara, which he left the 2Gth instant, on his way to Gen. Amherst. 
From the said gentleman we have the following particulars, viz: — That after the 
melancholy accident of the 20th, which carried off the General, the command of the 
army devolving on Sir William Johnson, he continued to pursue the late General's 
vigorous measures, and erected his third batter}- within 100 yards of the flag bastion; 
having intelligence from his Indians, of a large party being on their march from the 
Falls to relieve the fort. Sir William made a disposition to prevent them. The 23d, 
in the evening, he ordered the Light Infantn,-, and picquets of the lines, to lie near the 
road on our left, leading from the Falls to the fort; these he reinforced in the morning 
of the 24th, with the Grenadiers, and part of the 46th regiment, all under the com- 



208 HISTORY OF THE 

mand of Lieut. Col. Massey: Lieut. Col. Farquar, with the 44th battalion, was 
ordered to the tail of the trenches, to support the guard of the trenches, commanded by 
Major Beckwith. About eight in the morning our Indians advanced to speak to 
the French Indians, which the enemy declined. The action began soon after, with 
screams, as usual, from the enemy; but our troops were so well disposed to receive 
them in front, and our Indians on their flanks, that in less than an hour's time their 
whole army was ruined. The number of the slain was not ascertained, as the pursuit 
was continued for three miles. Seventeen officers were made prisoners, among whom 
are Monsieur D' Aubrey, chief in command, wounded; Monsieur de Lignery, second 
in command, wounded also; Monsieur Marini, leader of the Indians; Monsieur de 
Villie, Repentini, Martini, and Basonc, all captains, and several others.* After 
this defeat, which was in sight of the garrison, Sir William sent Major Harvey into 
the fort, with a list of the officers taken, recommending it to the commanding officer to 
surrender before more blood was shed, and while he had it in his power to restrain the 
Indians. The commanding officer, to be certain of such a defeat, sent an officer of 
his to see the prisoners; they were shown to him; and, in short, the capitulation was 
finished about ten at night of the 24th, by which the garrison surrendered, with the 

'honors of war, which Lieutenant Moncrief saw embarked the morning he came 
away, to the number of 607 private men, exclusive of the officers and their ladies, and 
those taken in the action. We expect them here to-morrow on their way to 
New York. 

Saturday afternoon an express arrived in town [New York City] from Albany, 
which place he left about 6 o'clock on Thursday morning, with the following agreeable 
news, which was brought to Albany a few hours before, from Sir William Johnson 
at Niagara, viz: — That on the 24th of July, as Sir William lay before the fort of 
Niagara, with the forces under his command, besieging it, he received intelligence by 
a party of his Indians that were sent out on a scout, that there was a large body of 
French and Indians, coming from Venango, as a reinforcement to the garrison of 

.Niagara. Gen. Johnson thereupon ordered 600 chosen men from the 44th and 46th 
regiments, 100 New York provincials, and 600 Mohawks, Senecas, &c. to march 
immediately, and way lay them, which they accordingly did, and threw up a breast- 
work at a place where they knew the French must pass by on their way to the fort; 
and sent a batteau with 10 or 12 men down the river a little way, to fire when the 
enemy were near at hand, which would give them warning to prepare themselves for 
their reception; and in a short time after their breast-work was finished, they heard the 
alarm given by the batteau, that was sent forward, on which they all prepared them- 
selves to receive the enemy, each .nan having two balls and three buck-shot in his gun, 
and were squatted. However, the enemy perceived them in their entrenchment, and 
fired six times on them before our people returned the fire; but as soon as the enemy 
came close, all the English rose up and discharged their pieces, which made the utmost 
slaughter imaginable among them, and repeated their fire three times, when the 
enemy's Indians that were left alive, left them; immediately upon which our people 
jumped over their breast-work, and flew on the enemy, sword in hand, still continuing 
to make great slaughter among them, and took 120 prisoners, among which were 17 
officers, some of which are of distinction, with their chief commander. The havoc 
we made at the end was great, 500 of the enemy at least being left on the field of 

* The battle ground is a mile and a half below the Five Mile Meadows, at a place 
called Bloody Run. Skulls and other human bones, bill-axes, pieces of muskets, &c., 
were strewn over the ground there, long after the settlement of the country commenced. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 209 

battle. Those that could, made their escape, and went down the river. Upon the 
return of our troops to Gen. Johnson with the prisoners, he immediately sent a flag of 
truce in to the commander of the fort, and demanded a surrender, telling him of the 
defeat of the reinforcement he expected; but the French commandant would not give 
credit to what Gen. Johnson said, till he had sent a flag of truce with a drum, into our 
camp, and found it but too true ; and immediatelj- on the officer's return to the fort, 
the French commandant offered to capitulate, provided Gen. Johnson would permit the 
garrison to march out with all the honors of war, which was agreed to ; but that they 
must immediately, upon their coming out, lay down their arms, and surrender them- 
selves, which they accordingly did; and Gen. Johnson took possession of the fort 
directly after. The garrison consisted of 607 men, among which were 16 officers, 7 of 
which were captains, besides the chief commander, and we hear they are shortly after 
their surrender, embarked on board of batteaux, and sent up to Oswego, and from 
ihence were to be sent down to New York, and may be expected here every day. The 
number of our killed and wounded in the defeat of the reinforcement fromVenanoro, we 
cannot as yet justly ascertain, but there were five of the New Yorkers among the slain 
in that affair. It is said we had not lost 40 men in the whole, since the landing of the 
troops at Niagara. The Indians were allowed all the plunder in the fort, and found a 
vast quantity of it, some say to the value of £ 300 a man. The fort, it is said, is laro^ 
enough to contain 1000 fighting men, without inconvenience; all the buildimrs in and 
about it are standing, and in good order; and it is thought, had our forces stormed the 
place (which was intended) they would have met with a warm reception; and beating 
the Venango party, will undoubtedly crown with laurels the ever deserving Johnson "* 

From the Maryland Gazette, Aug. 23d, 1759: Under Philadelphia head, Aug. 16th: 
By a letter from Niagara, of the 21st. ult [?], we learn that by the assiduity and 
influence of Sir William Johnson, there were upwards of eleven hundred Indians 
convened there, who, by their good behaviour, have justly gained the esteem of the 
whole army: That Sir William being informed the enemy had buried a quantity of 
goods on an Island, about twenty miles from the fort, sent a number of Indians to 
search for them, who found to the value of eight thousand pounds, and were in hopes 
of finding more, and that a French vessel, entirely laden with beaver, had foundered on 
the Lake, where her crew, consisting of forty-one men, were all lost.t 
From the Maryland Gazette, Thursday, Aug. 30, 1759. 

" New York, August 20, 1759. 

JOURNAL OF THE SIEGE OF NIAGARA, TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH; 

Friday, July 6, 1759. About seven at night a soldier, who was hunting, canie 
with all diligence to acquaint Monsieur Pouchot, that he had discovered at the entrance 



* The following eloquent description of the battle scene upon the river bank, occurs 
in Graham's Colonial History: — "The French Indians having raised the fierce, wild 
yell, called the war-whoop, which by this time had lost its appalling effects on the 
British soldiers, the action beean by an impetuous attack from the enemy; and while 
the neighboring Cataract of Niagara, pealed forth to inattentive ears, it.s everlasting 
voice of many icaters, the roar of artilley, the shrieks of the Indians, and all the martial 
clang and dreadful reveln,- of a field of battle, mingled in wild chorus with the majestic 
music of nature." 

t Some may be disposed to infer that the anchor, cannon, «S:c. which the author has 
assumed, were those of the Griffin, are as likely to have belonged to the shipwrecked 
vessel here spoken of. But forty-six years inteiwened between the loss of this vessel, 
and the finding of the relics near the mouth of the Eighteen Mile creek; not a sufficient 
period to allow of the appearance those relics presented: the anchor deeply embedded 
m sand and gravel, the timber growth, &c. 

14 



210 HISTORY OF THE 

of the wood, a party of savages, and that they had even fired on some other hunters. 
Mons. PoucHOT immediately sent M. Selviert, Captain in the regiment of Rousil- 
lon, at the head of one picquet, a dozen Canadian volunteers preceded them, and on 
their coming to the edge of the woods, a number of Indians fired upon them which 
they returned, and were obliged to retire. They took Messrs. Furnace and Aloque, 
Interpreters of the Iroquois, two Canadians, and two other gentlemen. They made 
another discharge and retired. Monsieur Pouchot fired some cannon upon them. 
Mons. Selviert lay all night, with 100 men, in the Demilune,* and the rest of the 
garrison was under arms on the ramparts till midnight. 

Saturday, July 1th. We perceived 7 barges on the Lake, a league and a half 
distance from the fort; we judged by that it was the English come to besiege us: 
Mons. Pouchot ordered the general to be beat, and employed all hands to work on the 
batteries, to erect embrasures,! all being en harbet\ before. He immediately des- 
patched a courier to Mons. Chevert, to give him notice of what happened; he also 
sent out Monsieur La Force, || Captain of the Schooner Iroquois, to destroy the English 
barges where he could find them. All that day several savages showed themselves on 
the edge of the desert. Monsieur La Force fired several cannon shot at them; and 
perceived they were working at an entrenchment at the Little Swamp,^ which is a 
league and a half from the fort. The guards this night as the night before. 

Sunday, 8th July. The schooner continued to cruise and fire on the English camp. 
About nine in the morning, an English officer brought a letter from Brigadier 
Prideaux, to Mons. Pouchot, to summons him, proposing him all advantages and 
good treatment, all which he ver}' politely refused, and even seemed to be unwilling to 
receive the English General's letter. The remainder of this day the English made no 
motions. 

[There is no entry for Monday.] 

Tuesday, lOlJi. At 2 o'clock all our men were on the ramparts, and at day-break 
we perceived they had opened their trenches, at the entrance of the wilderness, at 
about three hundred toises from the fort; we made a very hot fire upon them all day. 
M. Chabourt arrived with the garrison of the Little Fort,§ and seven or eight savage 

* The work in front of the curtain or main breast-work. 

t A narrow orifice through which the cannon is fired. 

t In a condition to allow of cannon being fired over them. 

II We first hear of this early navigator upon lake Ontario, in Washington's dian,' of 
his mission to the Ohio, in 1753. He accompanied him in a part of his tour, and in 
the ensuing spring was captured and sent a prisoner to Williamsbui-g. He was the 
French leader and Indian negotiator in the early contest between the French and 
English in the neighborhood ofFort Du Quesne, (Pittsburgh). He was the Joncaire 
of that region, though not as successful, as was the adopted son of the Senecas. He 
broke jail at Williamsburg, and going at large, excited terror among the border settlers 
of Virginia, by whom he was regarded as a dangerous ally of the Indians. In his 
attempted escape, he was arrested by a back woods-man, who resisted his offers of 
wealth and preferment, and conveyed him back to prison, where he was loaded with a 
double weight of irons and chained to the floor of his dungeon. Washington, hearing 
of the hard fate of his old acquaintance, remonstrated with Gov. Dinwiddie, but failed 
to excite his sympathies. La Force remained in prison two years. The next we hear 
of him, he is captain of the " Schooner Iroquois " on lake Ontario. Cruising on the 
lake, he escaped the fate of his countrjmen at Niagara. 

% The Little Swamp is forty rods west of the mouth of the Four Mile Creek. Some 
of the remains of the battery are still there. 

§ At Schlosser 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 21 1 

Iroquois and Missagoes. Monsieur Pouchot went to palisade the ditches: The service 
as usual, only the addition of two officers to lie in the covered way. About 11 o'clock 
at nijjht, orders were given to make all the picquets fire from the covered way, to. 
hinder the workmen of the enemy. M. La Force sent his boat on shore for Monsieur 
Podchot's orders. 

Wednesday, Wth Julij. The works continue on both sides. At noon a party of 
about fifteen men, soldiers and militia, went very nigh the trenches of the enemy, and 
perceived them sally out between four and five hundred, who came towards them at a 
quick pace, but they were stopped by our cannon. They began on the other side of the 
swamp, which is the left of their trench, another about twenty yards; and at 5 o'clock 
they began to play two Grenadoe Royal Mortars. At 6 o'clock two savages of the Five 
Nations, who were invited by one Catendesse, of their nation, came to speak to 
Monsieur Pouchot; the firing ceased on both sides during this parley. At 10 o'clock 
we began to fire again, and then we found the English had eight mortars. 

Night between the llth and I2th. The enemy ran their parallel from their first 
trench to the lake side, where it seemed they intended to establish a batter)\ At two 
in the afternoon, [of the 12th, doubtless,] four chiefs of the Five Nations came to us 
on parole, and said they were going to retire to Belle Famille. The enemy wrought 
the rest of that day, and perfected their night's work. Monsieur La Force had orders 
to proceed to Frontenac, and to return immediately. In the night between the 12th 
and 13th they fired many bombs. I went with thirty men to observe where the 
enemy wrought. 

Friday, I3th July. A canoe arrived from Monsieur De Ville, to hear how we 
stood at this post (or rather for the Canada post.) Tiie enemy threw a great manv 
bombs all this day,"and continued to work to perfect their trenches: we fired a great 
many cannon shot. Many of their savages crossed the river, and desired to speak 
with us; there were but two of those nations with us. I went out with five volunteers, 
to act as the night before. The enemy fired no bombs till about midnight. 

Saturday, 14th July. At day-break we found they had prolonged their trenches to 
the lake shore, in spite of the great fire from our cannon and musketr}', during the 
night, and perfected it during the day time; they have placed four mortars and thrown 
many bombs. All our garrison lay in the covered way, and on the ramparts. 

Sunday, \5th July. In the morning we perceived they had finished their works 
begun the night before. During the night they threw three hundred bombs; the rest 
of the day and night they threw a great many, but did not incommode us in any shape. 

Monday, 16th July. At dawn of day we spied, about half a league off, two barges, 
at which we discharged some cannon, on which they retired. In the course of the 
day they contined to throw some bombs. They have already disabled us about twenty 
men. All our men lie on beaver, or in their clothes, and armed. We do what we can 
to incommode them with our cannon. 

Tuesday, llth July. Until six this morning we had a thick fog, so that we could 
not discern the works of the enemy; but it clearing a little up, we saw they had raised 
a batter}' of three pieces of cannon, and four mortars on the other side of the river; 
they began to fire about 7 A. M., and Monsieur Pouchot placed all the guns he could 
against them: The fire was brisk on both sides all day, they seemed most inclined 
to batter the house where the Commandant lodges. The service as usual for the night. 

Wednesday, 18th July. There was a great firing as on the preceding day; we had 
one soldier dismembered, and four wounded by their bombs. 

Thursday, 19th July. At dawn of day we found the enemy had begun a parallel 
eighty yards long in front of the fort. The fire was ven.- great on both sides. At 2 P. 



215 HISTORY OF THE 

M. arrived the Schooner Iroquois, from Frontenac, and laid abreast of the fort, waiting 
for a calm, not being able to get in, the enemy having a battery on the other side of the 
river. Monsieur Pouchot will have the boat on shore as soon as the wind falls. 

Friday, 2Qth July. The English have made a third parallel, towards the lake; they 
are to-day about one hundred and sixty yards from the fort. They cannot have worked 
quietly at the Sappe, having had a great fire of musketrj' all night long, which they 
were obliged to bear. During the day they made a great firing with their mortars, and 
they perfected their works begun the night of the 19th to the 20th. We had one man 
killed, and four wounded. The fire of the musketrj' was very hot on both sides till 
eleven at night, when the enemy left off, and we continued ours all night. Two canoes 
were sent on board the schooner, which are to go to Montreal and Tironto. 

Saturday, '2\st. During the night the enemy made a fourth parallel, which is about 
one hundred yards from the fort, in which it appears they will erect a battery for a 
breach in the flag bastion. They have hardly fired any cannon or bombs in the day, 
which gives room to think they are transporting their cannon and artillery from their 
old batter}' to their new one. The service as usual. Their battery on the other side 
fired but little in the day. The schooner went off to see two canoes over to Tironto. 
one of which is to post to Montreal, and from thence she is to cruise off" Oswego, to try 
to stop the ftnemy's convoys when on their way. The company of volunteers are 
always to pass the night in the covered way. 

Sundaif, 22d, All the night was a stronor conflict on both sides. We had one man 
killed by them and by our own caUDOn. We fired almost all our cannon with cartridges. 
They worked in the night to perfect all their works begun the night before The 
enemy began to fire red-hot balls in the night; they also firod fire-poles. * All day they 
continued at work to establish their batteries. They fired, as usual, bombs and cannon. 
The service as usual for the night of the 22d and 23d. They worked hard to perfect 
their batteries, being ardently sustained by their musketry. 

Monday, 23(/. We added two pieces of cannon to the bastion of the lake, to oppose 
those of the enemy's side. At 8 A. M. four savages brought a letter front Monsieur 
Aubrey to Monsieur PoncHOT, by which we learn, that he has arrived at the Great 
Island, t before the Little Fort, at the head of twenty-five hundred, half French and 
half savages. Monsieur Pouchot immediately sent back four savages with the answer 
to Monsieur Aubbkt's letter, informing him of the enemy's situation. These savages, 
before they came in, spoke to the Five Nations, and gave them five belts to engage 
th?m to retire from the enemy. They saw part of the enemy's camp, and told us the 
first or second in command was killed by one of our bullets, and two of their gims 
broken and one mortar. We have room to hope, that with such success we may oblige 
the enemy to raise the siege, with the loss of men, and as they take up much ground, 
they must be beat, not being able to rally quick enough. At 2 P. M. they unmasked 

another battery of pieces of cannon, three of which were eighteen-pounders, the 

others twelve and six. They began with a brisk fire, which continued two hours, then 
slackened. About 5 P. M. we saw a barge go over to Belle Famille, on the other side 
of the river, and some motions made there. One of the four savages which went off 
this morning, returned his Porcelain (i. e. wampum), he had nothing new. The 
service of the night as usual. We worked hard to place two pieces, twelve-pounders, 
on the middle of the curtains, to bear upon their batter}-. 

* Fire-balls. 

t Nav}' Island, which the French may have regarded as but a continuation of 
" Great " or Grand Island 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 213 

Tuesday, 2itli July. The enemy began their fire abount 4 o'clock this morning, and 
continued to fire with the same vivacity the rest of the day. At 8 A. M. we perceived 
our army was approaching, having made several discharges of musketry at Belle 
Famille. At 9 the fire began on both sides, and lasted half an hour. We wait to 
know who has the advantage of those two. At 2 P. M. we heard by a savage, that 
GUI' army was routed, and almost all made prisoners, by the treacherj' of our savages: 
when immediately the English array had the pleasure to inform us of it, by summon- 
ing us to surrender." 

The above with some letters, were found in an embrasure, after we were in possess- 
sion of the fort, since which, translated, and the original given to Sir William 
Johnson. 

Since our last seven sloops arrived here [N. Y.] from Albany, with about six hun- 
dred and forty French prisoners, officers included, being the whole of the garrison of 
Niagara. Among the officers are Monsieur Pouchot, who was commander-in-chief 
of the fort, and Monsieur Villahs, both captains, and knights of the order of St. Louis. 
Tiiere are ten other officers, one of which is the famous Monsieur JoiNCffiUR, a verj- 
noted man among the Seneca Indians, and whose father was the first that hoisted 
French colours in that country. His brother, also a prisoner, is now hero, and has 
been very humane to many Englishmen, having purchased several of them from the 
savages." 

While British arms were achieving victories at Ticonderoga, 
('rown Point, Frontenac, Du Quesne, and Niagara, Gen. Wolfi: 
was at the same time, vigorously carrying forward his operations 
before Quebec. In the midst of his exertions, he received intelli- 
gence of the capture of Niagara and the retreat of the French 
before Gen. Amherst. The advanced period of the season, the 
strong French force at the isle Aux Noix, satisfied Wolfe that 
the union of the force under Gen. Amherst with that under 
himself, could not take place. Neither was it probable that Sir 
William Johnson would be able to march against Montreal, to 
divide the forces and divert the attention of the French. Notwith- 
standing all this, Wolfe I'esolvcd to continue the siege, make 
superior caution and daring, activity and bravery supply the place 
of numbers and strength. Though in body so weak and feeble 
from the effects of a painful and wasting malady, that he was 
often confined to his room. Gen. Wolfe, by his cheerful and 
confident bearing, inspired the minds of all around him with the 
highest expectation, that under him their brightest hopes would be 
fully realized — their toils and sufferings be rewarded with the 
noblest triumph British valor had ever before achieved on the 
American continent. 

With an army of eight thousand men, under a convoy of British 
vessels, Gen. Wolfe landed on the Isle of Orleans, lying in the 
St. Lawrence, a few leagues below the city of Quebec, near the 



214 HISTORY OF THE 

close of June, 1759. Here he had a full view of the dangers and 
embarrassments that he must encounter, and of the bold yet 
cautious course he would have to adopt and pursue, in order to 
succeed. Nobly exclaiming that " a victorious army finds no 
difficulties," Wolfe resolved to hazard every thing to gain every 
thing. With the hope that Montcalm, the French commander, 
might be induced to change his strong and well chosen position 
and enter into a general engagement, Wolfe brought about the 
battle of Montmorency, and was repulsed with the loss of five 
hundred of his best men. At this critical juncture, the daring 
resolution was made to carry on all future operations above the 
town. At the greatest risk and the most imminent danger, by a 
bold and master movement, the English finally gained the Heights 
of Abraham, which overlooked and commanded the city. So great 
were the astonishment and surprise of Montcalm, when first 
informed of this sudden change of the enemy's position, that he 
refused to believe it possible. He saw that a fatal battle could 
not much longer be avoided — a battle that inevitably would decide 
the fate of the empire of France in America — and he made his 
preparations accordingly. An engagement soon after took place 
between the two armies, in which the steady, unflinching bra- 
very of the British, and the reckless, impetuous courage of the 
French were both tried and proved. The English were victorious 
and to them the French surrendered Quebec — their last remaining 
strong hold that had not yet fallen into the possession of their 
enemies. 

Wolfe and Montcalm, the commanding generals, were 
foemen worthy of each other. The wonderful coincidence and 
contrast presented in the closing scene of their fortunes and life, 
have forever blended their memory in glorious union on the 
Historian's page, the Painter's canvass, and in the Poet's numbers. 
Both had distinguished themselves during the war — both were 
in the thickest and fiercest of the battle storm — both led their 
emulous columns on to the deadly charge — both were mortally 
wounded and reluctantly carried from the field — both died — one 
as the shouts of victory were ringing louder and louder in his 
failing ears, and words of peaceful resignation were falling from 
his closing lips, — the other, with the fervent aspiration that he 
might not "live to see the surrender of Quebec," and his country's 
dominions pass into the hands of his conqueror. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 215 

The loss of these two brave and accompUshed commanders was 
deeply lamented and regretted by their respective nations — their 
names united and honored by their enemies. With what truth and 
beauty does their kindred fate illustrate, though under widely 
different circumstances, how often it is, 

"That, the paths of glory lead but to the grave."* 

Thus triumphantly with the English, ended the campaign of 
1759; but not the mutual exertions of the French and English for 
supremacy over the Indian nations. After the conquest of Quebec, 
two Indians of the Six Nations, at the suggestion of the English, 
it is presumed, visited a settlement of their people that had removed 
to Canada and were in the French interest. They endeavored to 
persuade their people to make a timely secession from the French, 
and come home to their own country; telling them that " th(; 
English, formerly women, were now all turned into men, and were 
growing as thick in the country as trees in the woods, that they 
had taken the French forts at Ohio, Ticonderoga, Louisburg and 
Quebec, and would soon eat all the French in Canada, and the 
Indians that adhered to them." The French Indians were incred- 
ulous; they said to their visitors: — "Brothers you are decieved; 
the English cannot eat up the French; their mouths are too little, 
their jaws too weak, and their teeth not sharp enough. Our father. 
Yonnondio, has told us, and we believe him, that the English, like 
a thief have stolen Louisburg and Quebec from the great king, 
while his back was turned, and he was looking another way; but 
that he has turned his face, and sees what the English have done, 
he is going into their country with a thousand great canoes, and all 
his warriors; and he will take the little English king and pinch him 
till he makes him cry out and, give back what he has stolen, as he 
did about ten summers ago, and this your eyes will see." The 
French Indians came near making converts of the English agents. 
The result of the visit was at least to make the Six Nations more 



*An affecting incident is related of Gen. Wolfe, which presents his character in the 
most amiable light. It is said that when Wolfe and his army were noiselessly floating 
down the St. Lawrence, at midnight, to the place where they were to land and begin 
their difficult ascent to the Heights above, he, in a low, tender tone, repeated the whole 
of Gray's plaintive and touching " Elegy in a Country Church Yard," in which occurs 
the T^ropAef/c line above quoted; and at the conclusion of it, he remarked: — "Now, 
gentlemen, I would rather be the author of that poem, than take Quebec." What a 
noble tribute for a Warrior to render a Poet. 



•216 HISTORY OF THE 

wavering in their adherence to the English, and distrustful as to 
their final supremacy. 

While this war had been waging, as in those that had preceded 
it, there were frequent incursions of French and Indians to the 
frontiers of Massachusetts and New Hampshire; but their visits 
were less sanguinary and barbarous in their character, than those 
of former years. Bounties were paid, to encourage the Indians to 
deliver all English prisoners alive. 

French determination to maintain their ground, was revived 
after a short recoil from the capture of their strong hold; and new 
and large levies of troops were made from the English colonies. 
No sooner had the EngUsh fleet retired from the St. Lawrence than 
Levi, who had succeeded Montcalm, resolved to attempt the 
recovery of Quebec. In April, 1660 he embarked with a strong 
army from Montreal, and having by means of armed frigates, the 
control of the St. Lawrence, he took position at Point au Tremble, 
within a few miles of Quebec. In a few days. Gen. Murray, who 
had succeeded Wolfe, sallied out and attacked the French in their 
then position, near Sillery. He retreated, after a severe engage- 
ment, and the loss of one thousand men; the French loss still 
larger. The French soon after, opened trenches against the town, 
and commenced an effectual fire upon the garrison. It was vigor- 
ously resisted, but so well conducted was the siege, that the fate of 
the English was only decided by a squadron of theirs passing a 
French armament that had been sent out, and entering before it 
the mouth of the St. Lawrence. The English ships attacked the 
French frigates that had come down from Montreal, destroyed a 
part of them, and obliged the others to retreat up the river. The 
siege was raised; the whole French army making a hasty and rapid 
retreat to Montreal. 

The Marquis de Vaudreuil, Governor General of Canada, had 
'\xed his head quarters at Montreal, and resolved to make his last 
stand for French colonial empire. For this purpose he collected 
around him the whole force of the French colony. He infused 
his own spirit, confidence and courage, in the hemmed up colony, 
cheering the desponding by promises of help and succor from 
France. 

The English in the mean time, were not idle. Arrangements 
were made for a combined attack on Montreal. A detachment of 
English troops advanced from Crown Point, and took possession of 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 217 

Isle Aux Noix. Gen. Aimherst, with an army of about ten 
thousand regulars and provincials, left the frontiers of New York 
and advanced to Oswego, when he was joined by a thousand 
warriors of the Six Nations, under the command of Sir William 
JoHxXsoN. Embarking on lake Ontario, they arrived at Isle 
Royal, reducing that post, and proceeding down the St. Lawrence, 
arrived at Montreal, simultaneously with the command under Gen. 
Murray. Arrangements were made to invest the city with this 
formidable consolidated army. Vaudreuil, rightly estimating the 
strength of his assailants, and his own inability successfully to 
resist them, resolved upon capitulation. On the day after the 
arrival of the British army, — the 7th of September, 1760, 
Montreal, Detroit, and all other places of strength within the 
government of Canada, were surrendered to the British crown. 
Gen. Murray was appointed Governor of Montreal, and a force 
left with him of two thousand men; and returning to Quebec, his 
lorce was augmented to four thousand. 

The French armament, that has before been noticed, on learning 
that the English had entered the St. Lawrence, took refuge in the 
Bay of Chaleurs, on the coast of Nova Scotia, where it was soon 
pursued by a British fleet from Louisburg, and destroyed. 

Thus ended the colonial empire of France in North America; or 
rather its efforts to resist by regular military organizations, 
fortified forts, &c., English dominion. With the fall of Montreal, 
ihey had surrendered all their possessions upon this continent, east 
of the Mississippi, and beyond that, possession was merely 
nominal, consisting of but little more than the feeble colony of 
Louisiana. 

Soon after these events, most of the eastern Indian nations 
inclined to the English, but the anticipated entire alliance and 
pacific disposition of the Indians around the borders of the western 
lakes, was not realized. Indian fealty did not follow but partially, 
the triumph of the English arms. The French had gained a 
strong hold upon the western Indians, which was not unloosed by 
the reverses they had encountered. The Indian nations became 
alarmed at the rapid strides of the English, jealous of its consequen- 
ces to them, and the French lost no opportunity to increase this 
feeling, and induce them to believe that the next effort of English 
ambition and conquest, would be directed to their entire subjuga- 
tion, if not extermination. 



218 ^ HISTORY OF THE 

"There was then upon the stage of action, one of those high 
and heroic men, who stamp their own characters upon the age in 
which they hve, and who appear destined to survive the lapse of 
time, Hke some proud and lofty column, which sees crumbling 
around it, the temples of God and the dwellings of man, and yet 
rests upon its pedestal, time worn and time honored. This man 
was at the head of the Indian confederacy, and had acquired an 
influence over his countrymen, such as had never before been seen, 
and such as we may not expect to see again. To form a just 
estimate of his character, we must judge of him by the 
circumstances under which he was placed; by the profound 
ignorance and barbarism of his people; by his own destitution of 
all education and information, and by the jealous, fierce, and 
intractable spirit of his compeers. When measured by this 
standard, we shall find few of the men whose names are familiar 
to us, more remarkable for all they professed and achieved, than 
PoNTiAc. Were his race destined to endure until the mists of 
antiquity could gather around his days and deeds, tradition would 
dwell upon his feats, as it has done in the old world, upon all who, 
in the infancy of nations have been prominent actors, for evil or 
for good." * PoNTiAC was an Ottawa. 

Major Rogers, commanded the British troops that took pos- 
session of Detroit under the treaty of capitulation at Montreal. 
When he was approaching his destination, the ambassadors of this 
forest king met him and informed him that their sovereign was 
near by, and that he desired him to halt until he could see him ; 
that the request was in the name of ''Pontiac, the king and 
lord of the country." Approaching Major Rogers, Pontiac 
demanded his business. An explanation followed, and permission 
was granted for him and his troops to take the place of the 
French; acts of courtesy even attending the permission. 

This friendly relation was not destined to be permanent. In 
1763, Pontiac had united nearly all the Indian nations of the 
west, in a confederacy, the design of which, was to expel the 
English from the country, and restore French ascendancy. ''His 
first object was to gain his own tribe, and the warriors who gen- 
erally attended him. Topics to engage their attention and inflame 
their passions were not wanting. A belt was exhibited which he 
pretended to have received from the king of France, urging him 
to drive the British from the country, and to open the paths for 
the return of the French. The British troops had not endeavored 

/ * Governor Cass. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. • 219 

to conciliate the Indians, and mutual causes of complaint existed. 
Some of the Ottawas had been disgraced by blows, but above all, 
the British were intruders in the country, and would ere long 
conquer the Indians as they had conquered the French, and wrest 
from them their lands." * His first step was to convene a large 
council of the confederates at the river Aux Ecorces. The speech 
he delivered upon that occasion, was ingeniously framed to further 
his object. By turns he appealed to the pride of country, the 
jealousy, the warlike spirit, the superstition, of the assembled coun- 
cillors. He assumed that the Great Spirit had recently made a 
revelation to a Delaware Indian, as to the conduct he wished his 
red children to pursue. He had directed them to "abstain from 
ardent spirits, and to cast from them the manufactures of the white 
man. To resume their bows and arrows, and skins of animals for 
clothing." " Why," said the Great Spirit indignantly, to the Dela- 
ware, " do you suffer these dogs in red clothing to enter your 
country, and take the land I gave you? Drive them, from it, 
and when you are in distress I will help you." The speech had 
its desired effect. In the month of May following, all things were 
arranged for a simultaneous atttack upon each of twelve British 
posts, extending from Niagara to Green Bay, in the north-west, 
and Pittsburg in the south-west. Nine of these posts were 
captured. The posts at Niagara and Pittsburg were invested but 
successfully resisted. Detroit was closely besieged by the forces 
of PoNTiAc, and the siege, and his war generally, was protracted 
beyond the reception of the news of the treaty of peace between 
France and England; in fact, until the expedition of Gen. Brad- 
street, of which some account will be given in another place. 
The incidents of Pontiac's war are among the most horrid in 
Indian war history. The officers and soldiers of most of the cap- 
tured garrisons were" tomahawked and scalped. The details do 
not come within our range. 

A treaty of peace was definitely concluded at Paris, between 
England and France, on the 10th of February, 1763. To prevent 
any future disputes as to boundary, it was stipulated, that "the 
confines between Great Britain and France on the continent of 
North America should be fixed irrevocably by a line drawn along 
the centre of the Mississippi, from its source as far as the river 

* Gov. Cass. 



220 HISTORY OF THE 

Iberville; and from thence, by a line drawn along the middle of 
the river, and by the lakes Maurepas and Ponchartrain, to the sea." 
It was stipulated that the inhabitants of the countries ceded by 
France, should be allowed the enjoyment of the Roman Catholic 
faith, and the exercise of its rights as far as might be consistent 
with the laws of England; that they should retain their civil 
rights, while they were disposed to remain under the British 
government, and yet be entitled to dispose of their estates to 
British subjects, and retire with their produce, without hindrance 
or molestation to any part of the world. 

Never, perhaps, was a treaty of peace more acceptable, or 
hailed with livelier feelings of joy and congratulation, than was this 
by the English colonists in America. Harassed through long years, 
upon all their borders, their young men diverted from the peaceful 
pursuits of agriculture, to fill the ranks of the army in a long succes- 
sion of wars, they had been longing for repose. But it was the 
will of Providence, in directing and controlling the destinies of 
men — in shaping a higher and more glorious inheritance for the 
wearied colonists than colonial vassalage — that the repose should 
be of but short duration. "Amidst the tumultuous flow of pleasure 
and triumph in America, an intelligent eye might have discerned 
symptoms, of which a sound regard to British ascendancy required 
the most cautious, forbearing, and indulgent treatment; for it was 
manifest that the exultations of the Americans was founded, in no 
small degree, upon the conviction, that their own proper strength 
was augmented, and that they had attained a state of security 
which lessened at once their danger from neighboring hostility, and 
their dependence on the protection, so often delusive and preca- 
rious, of the parent state." And few will fail to observe how well 
calculated were the events we have just been considering, to 
prepare the sympathies, and shape the policy of France, in the 
struggle to which this peace was but a prelude. 



We have now come to the end of French dominion upon this 
portion of the continent of North America. The treaty of Paris 
consummated what the fall of Quebec and Montreal had rendered 
inevitable. In one chapter, the events of a long period — from 
1627 to 1763, one hundred and thirty-six years — have been 
embraced. How chequered and fluctuating the scene ! How full 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 2U1 

of vicissitudes, of daring adventures, of harassing rivalry, suffering, 
privation and death ! It w^as the contest of tvv^o powerful nations 
of Europe, for supremacy upon this continent. The stakes for 
which they were contending, were colonial power, extended 
dominion and gain — the last, the powerful stimulus that urged to 
the battle field, or prompted the bloody, stealthy assault. How 
little, the thoughtful reader will say, the rights, the interests, the 
dignity, the elevation, the freedom of man — was involved in this 
long, almost uninterrupted, sanguinary conflict. Nothing of all 
this was blended with the motives of the promoters of these wars. 
The fields of contest, the banks of the St. Lawrence, of the lakes, 
our own fair, but then wilderness region,-^were drenched with 
some of the best blood of England and France; the colonies of 
New England sent out those to an untimely grave that would have 
adorned and strengthened her in a not far off, and more auspicious 
period. They "bravely fought and bravely fell;" but there was 
little in the cause in which they were engaged to shed a halo of 
glory around the memory of its martyrs. And yet remotely, 
those most unprofitable struggles, (viewed in reference to any 
immediate result,) were to have an important bearing upon the 
destiny of our now free, happy, and prosperous Republic. 

How slight the causes that often, seemingly, govern great and 
momentous events! And yet, what finite reason would often 
construe as accidental, may be the means which Infinite Wisdom 
puts in requisition to accomplish its high purposes. Had the 
French fleet gained the mouth of the St. Lawrence before that of 
the English, Quebec, in all probability, would have been restored 
to France, and French dominion would have held its own upon this 
continent, if indeed, with the Indian alliances that the French had 
secured, and were securing, they had not subjugated the English. 
Then comes the enquiry whether any of the same causes would 
have existed under French colonial dominion, that arose under 
English rulel Some, prominent ones, we know, would not. And 
yet, in the main, EngUsh colonial rule, was more liberal than that 
of the French. Had the contest for separation and independence 
been against France, England, as in the reversed case, would not 
have been the ally of the weaker party, struggling against its deep- 
seated notions of legitimacy and kingly rule. But it was best as 
it was; and speculation Uke this is unprofitable, especially when it 



222 HISTORY OF THE 

can'work out in its imaginings no more glorious result, than the 
one that was realized. 

It was during the w^ar with France, that some of the most 
distinguished officers and soldiers of the Revolution, that comman- 
ded and filled the ranks of our armies so skillfully and successfully, 
rendered their first military services. Washington fought his 
first battle at the Great Meadows; he was at Braddock's defeat, 
where buds of promise appeared, that in a better conflict bloomed 
and shed abroad their fragrance — their cheering influences, in 
years of doubt and despondency — their matured and ripened fruit, 
a cluster of sovereign states, constituting a glorious Union. 
PuTNAivi, the self-taught, rough man of sterUng virtues, — New 
England's bravest, if not most prudent leader, was at Ticonderoga, 
in 1750; Gates was at Braddock's defeat, as was Morgan. 
Stark, afterwards the hero of Bennington, was a captain of 
Rangers in that war. And who, of middle age, has not listened 
to the mingled recitals of events of the French war, and the war 
of the Revolution, coming from the veterans who helped to fill the 
ranks of the armies of both? 

The reader will have observed that the trade in furs and peltry, 
constituted the main object of French enterprise. The cultivation 
of small patches of ground around the military and trading posts, 
and a narrow strip of some twenty miles in length on the Detroit 
river, constituted mainly the agricultural efforts of the French, in 
all their long occupancy of this region. They early introduced at 
Detroit, apple trees, (or seeds,) from the province of Normandy. * 
The first apples that the pioneer settlers of the Holland Purchase 
had, come from that source, and from a few trees that had a like 
origin, at Schlosser, on the Niagara river. The trees at Schlosser 
are existing, and bearing a very pleasant flavored natural fruit. 
They are the oldest apple trees in Western New York. Those found 
in the vicinity of Geneva, Canandaigua, Honeyoye flats, and upon 
the Genesee river, were either propagated from them, or from 
seeds given the Seneca Indians by the Jesuit Missionaries. 

The Hudson's Bay Company was organized in 1696, by the 
English. Its operations were confined to the northern regions, 
but in process of time, its branches came in collision with the French 

* Historj' of Michigan. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 223 

traders upon the lakes. It was a monopoly, opposed not only to 
French, but to English private enterprise. '-The consequences 
were injurious to the trade, as the time and energies which might 
have been employed in securing advantages to themselves, were 
devoted to petty quarrels, and the forest became a scene of brawls, 
and a battle ground of the contending parties. The war was 
organized into a system. The traders of the Hudson's Bay 
Company followed the Canadians to their different posts, and used 
every method to undermine their power." 

During the winter of 1783, the north-west company was estab- 
lished. It was composed principally of merchants who had carried 
on the trade upon their own individual accounts. For a long 
period, both companies made vast profits. Some idea of the extent 
of the trade, may be formed by the following exhibit of the busi- 
ness for one year: — 

106,000 Beaver skins, 600 Wolverine skins, 

2,100 Bear " 1,650 Fisher 

1,500 Fox " 100 Racoon 

4,000 Kitt Fox " 3,800 Wolf 

4,600 Otter " 700 Elk 

16,000 Muskquash " 750 Deer 

32,000 Martin '* 1,200 Deer skins dressed, 

1,800 Mink " 500 Buffalo robes, and a 

6,000 Lynx " quantity of Castorum, 

•• There was necessarily, extensive establishments connected with 
the trade, such as store-houses, trading-houses, and places of 
accommodation for the agents and partners of the larger compa- 
nies. The mode of living on the Grand Portage, on lake Superior, 
in 1794 was as follows: — The proprietors of the establishment, 
the guides, clerks, and interpreters, messed together; sometimes 
to the number of one hundred, in a large hall. Bread, salt pork, 
beef, butter, venison and fish, Indian corn, potatoes, tea and wine, 
were their provisions. Several cows were kept around the estab- 
lishments, which supplied them with milk. The corn was prepared 
at Detroit by being boiled in a strong alkali, and was called 
" hominee." The mechanics had rations of this sort of provisions, 
while the canoe-men had no allowance but melted fat and Indian 
corn. The dress of the traders, most of whom had been employed 
under the French government, consisted of a blanket coat, a shirt 
of striped cotton, trowsers of cloth, or leather leggins, similar to 



Note. — [CF See Hennepin's account of the difficulties of getting the Griffin up the 
rapids of the Niagara river, page 124. The planting he speaks of must have been near 
the village of Waterloo, on the Canada side. These were the first seeds planted by 
Europeans, in all the region west and south of Schenectady and Kingston, and east of 
the Mississippi. 



HISTORY OF THE 



those of the Indians, moccasins wrought from deer-skins, a red or 
parti-colored belt of worsted, which contained suspended, a knife 
and tobacco pouch, and a blue woolen cap or hat, in the midst of 
which stuck a red feather. Light hearted, cheerful and courteous, 
they were ever ready to encamp at night among the savages, or in 
their own wigwams, to join in the dance, or awaken the solitudes 
of the wilderness with their boat-songs, as they swept with vigor- 
ous arm across the bosom of the waters.* 

"Even as late as 1810, the island of Mackinaw, the most 
romantic point on the Lakes, which rises from the altar of a 
river-god, was the central mart of the traffic, as old Michilimacki- 
nac had been a century before. At certain seasons of the year it 
was made a rendezvous for the numerous classes connected with 
the traffic. At these seasons the transparent waters around this 
beautiful island were studded with the canoes of Indians and 
traders. Here might then be found the merry Canadian voyagcur, 
with his muscular figure strengthened by the hardships of the 
wilderness, bartering for trinkets along the various booths scat- 
tered along its banks. The Indian warrior, bedecked with the 
most fantastic ornaments, embroidered moccasins and silver 
armlets; the North- Westers, armed with dirks — the iron men who 
had grappled with the grizzly bear, and endured the hard fare of 
the north; and the South- Wester, also put in his claims to 
deference, t 

"Fort William, near the Grand Portage, was also one of the 
principal ports of the Northwest Company. It was the place of 
junction, wh^re the leading partners from Montreal met the more 
active agents of the wilderness to discuss the interests of the 
traffic. The grand conference was attended with a demi-savage 
and baronial pomp. The partners from Montreal, clad in the 
richest furs, ascended annually to that point in huge canoes. 



* The author is indebted to a friend for the following literal translation, of one of 
the gay and frivolous, yet characteristic songs of these "forest mariners." It is said 
even now to be heard occasionally upon our north-western lakes: — 



Every spring 
So much novelty. 
Every lover 
Changes his mistress. 
Good wine doth not stupefy. 
Love awakes me. 

Every lover 
Changes his mistress, 
Let them change who will, 
As for me, I'll keep mine. 



Good wine doth not stupefy. 
Love awakes me. 

On my way, I have met. 
Three cavaliers, each mounted, 
Tol, lol, laridol da, 
Tol lol, laridoD da. 

Three cavaliers, each mounted. 
One on horseback, the other on foot. 
Tol lol, laridon da, 
Tol lol, laridol da. 



+ The American Fur Company, now in existence, and extending its operations from 
the shores of the Lakes to those of the Pacific, modelled in its operations somewhat 
after the old French and English companies, had its trading establishments scattered 
throuffh the forest. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 225 

manned by Canadian voyageurs, and provided with all the means 
of the most luxurious revelry. The Council-House was a large 
wooden building, adorned with the trophies of the chase, barbaric 
ornaments, and decorated implements used by the savages in war 
and peace. At such periods the post would be crowded with 
traders from the depths of the wilderness and from Montreal; 
partners of the Company, clerks, interpreters, guides, and a 
numerous host of dependents. Discussions of grave import, 
regarding the interests of the traffic, made up the arguments of 
such occasions; and the banquet was occasionally interspersed 
with loyal songs from the Scotch Highlander, or the aristocratic 
Britain, proud of his country and his king. Such were the 
general features of a traffic which constituted for a century, under 
French and English governments, the commerce of the North- 
western lakes. It was a trade abounding in the severest hardships, 
and the most hazardous enterprises. This was the most glorious 
epoch of mercantile enterprise in the forests of the North-west, 
when its half savage dominion stretched upon the lakes over 
regions large enough for empires; making barbarism contribute to 
civilization."* 

While the Jesuit missionary, as we have before had occasion to 
remark, left but feeble traces of his religion to mark his advent — 
the French traders, other adventurers, and those who, becoming 
prisoners in the long wars with the Indians, were adopted by them, 
left more enduring impressions. The French blood was mixed 
with that of the Indian, throughout all the wide domain that was 
primitively termed New France. In all the remnants of Indian 
nations that a few years since existed around the borders of the 
western lakes and rivers, the close observer of merged races, could 
discover the evidences of the gallantries, (and not unfrequently, 
perhaps, the permanent alliances.) of these early adventurers. 
Among the remnants of the Iroquois, now residing in our western 
counties, the mixed blood of the French and Indian, is frequently 
observed.! 

* History of Michigan. 

t John Green, an intelligent pioneer settler upon the Alleghany river, said to the 
author, during the last summer, when speaking of the Indians on the Alleghany 
Reservation, that there were but a small proportion there of pure Indian blood. That 
the prisoners taken by their ancestors in the French wars, and war of the Revolution, 
intermarried, and the white blood now predominates. "Take an instance now," said 
our informant, " where either father or mother is mixed blood, they have large families 
— when both are full blood Indians, they have but small famihes." 



15 



PART THIRD. 



CHAPTER I. 

BRIEF NOTICES OF EVENTS UNDER ENGLISH DOMINION. 



There is but little of local importance to embrace in our 
narrative, occurring between the close of the French and English 
war, by the treaty of Paris, in 1763, to the commencement of the 
American Revolution, in 1775. 

The English strengthened and continued the captured French 
garrison at Niagara, and other important posts along the western 
frontiers, for the purpose of protecting their scattered settlements 
and trading with, and conciliating the Indians. The questions of 
difference between England and her colonies — the disputes that 
were hastening to a crisis — did not reach and disturb these i-emote 
and then but partially explored solitudes; — where none but the 
fearless hunter, the adventurous traveller, the soldier, and the 
native inhabitants were seen. The only connection then between 
the eastern and western portion of our state, was kept up by com- 
merce with the Indians, and such relations as existed between the 
mihtary posts. This region was then far removed from civiliz?tion 
and improvement. Nearly a quarter of a century was to pass 
away before the tide of emigration reached its borders. 

The Senecas, it would seem, from the earliest period of English 
succession at Fort Niagara, were not even as well reconciled to 
them as to the French. There is very little doubt of their having 
been generally in the interests of Pontiac, and co-operators with 
him in his well arranged scheme for driving the English from the 
grounds the French had occupied. Some other portions of the 
Six Nations were also diverted from the English, as we find that a 
body of Iroquois were engaged in the attack on Fort Du Quesne.* 

* Graham, in his colonial history, says the Senecas were co-operators in the designs 
of Pontiac, but that, by the " indefatigable exertions of Sir William Johnson, the other 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 227 

Marv Jemisox, in relating a history of her captivity, &c., to 
her biographer, says that when she first arrived upon the Genesee 
river, the Senecas were making active preparations to join the 
French in the re-taking of Fort Niagara. That the expedition 
resuhed, (not in any attack upon the garrison, as we are to infer,) 
but in a successful resistance to an English force that had sallied 
from the garrison to get possession of the small French post at 
Schlosser.* The English were driven back with considerable loss. 
This, she says, was in the month of November, 1759. Two 
English prisoners, that were taken, were carried to the Genesee 
river and executed. 



TRAGEDY OF THE DEVIL'S HOLE. 



There are few of our readers who will not be familiar with the 
main features of this event. It was fresh in the recollection of the 
few of the white race, that were found here, when settlement 
commenced, and Seneca Indians were then living, who participated 
in it. The theatre of this tragedy — the locality that is figuratively 
designated as one of the fastnesses of the great embodiment of sin 
and evil — was in the high banks of the Niagara river, three miles 
below the Falls, and half a mile below the Whirlpool. It is a deep, 
dark cove, or chasm. "An air of sullen sublimity pre vades its gloom ; 
and where in its shadowy depths you seem cut off from the world 
and confined in the prison-house of terror. To appearance it is a 

of the Si.x Nations were restrained though with g'reat difficulty, from plunginjr into the 
hostile enterprise, which seemed the last effort of the Indian race to hold at least divi- 
ded empire with the colonists of North America." 

*Fort Schlosser — called by the French Little Fort — took its name, under English 
possession, from a Captain Schlosser, who was the first to occupy the place as an 
English post. In Dec. 1763, he was in New York. The Moravian Indians at Beth- 
lehem, apprehending an attack from the whites, and the horrid fate that afterwards 
befel them, appealed to Gen. Gage and Sir William Johnson, for protection, sending a 
deputation to New York for that purpose. Capt. Schlosser, with one hundred and 
seventy men, were detached to accompany the deputation back, and defend the Mora- 
vian settlement. In Loskriel's History of the Moravian Missions, it is said: — "These 
soldiers had just come from Niagara, and had suffered much from the savages near 
Lake Erie, which rendered them in the beginning, so averse to the Indians, that 
nothing favorable could be expected from them; — God in mercy, changed their dispo- 
sitions; their friendly behavior soon softened into cordiality; and they conversed 
familiarly with the Indian brethren, relating their sufferings with the savages." In 
Heckweider's Indian Narrative, p. 83, that good Moravian Missionary, speaking of the 
same event, says of Captain Schlosser, the commander of the guard: — "An officer 
deser\'edly esteemed by all good men, for his humanity and manly conduct, in protect- 
ing these persecuted Indians." 



228 HISTORY OF THE 

fit place for a demon-dwelling; and hence, probably, derives its 
name." * The road along the river bank passes so near, that the 
traveller can look down from it into the frightful gulf — to the 
bottom of the abyss, one hundred and fifty feet. It would seem 
that a huge section of rock had been detached, parting off and 
leaving the high banks almost perpendicular — over-hanging in fact, 
at some points. A small stream — the Bloody Run — taking its 
name from the event of which we are about to give some account, 
pours over the high pallisade of rock. Trees of the ordinary 
height of those common in our forests, rise from the bottom of the 
^'Hole," their tops failing to reach the level of the terrace above. 

Hitherto our accounts of the tragedy enacted there, have been 
derived from traditionary sources; no cotemporary written state- 
ment of it has as yet appeared in any historical work, or in any 
printed form. Among the London documents brought to this 
country by Mr. Broadhead, and deposited in the office of the 
Secretary of State at Albany, is a letter from Sir William Johnson, 
to the Board of Trade in New York, dated at Johnson's Hall, (on 
the Mohawk) September 25th, 1763, to which is appended the 
following Postscript: — 

"P. S. — This moment I have received an express informing me that an officer and 
twenty-four men who were escorting several wagons and ox-teams over the carrying 
place at Niagara, had been attacked and entirely defeated, together with two companies 
of Col. Wilmot's regiment who marched to sustain them. Our loss on this occasion, 
consists of Lieuts. Campbell, Frazier and Roscoe, of the Regulars. Capl. Johnson 
and Lieut. Drayton of the Provincials; and sixty privates killed with about eight or nine 
wounded. The enemy, who are supposed to be Senecas of the Chenussio, [Genessee,] 
scalped all the dead, took all their clothes, arms and amunition, and threw several of 
their bodies down a precipice." 

In a " Review of the Indian trade," by the writer of the above, 
dated four years after, speaking of this furious outbreak of the 
Indians, it is said : — '' They totally destroyed a body of Provincials 
and regulars of about one hundred men in the Carrying Place of 
Niagara, but two escaping." There is some discrepancy in the 
two statements. The first account was probably sent to Sir 
William by a messenger despatched from Niagara as soon as the 
affair was known there, and before the full extent of the loss was 
ascertained. In 1764 the writer was at Niagara, holding a treaty 
with the Senecas, where he probably learned the facts as he last 

* Orr's Guide to Niagara Falls. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 229 

Stated them. The statement that but two escaped the massacre, 
agrees, as will be seen from what follows, with the traditionary 
accounts, though the fate of the "eight or nine wounded," is left to 
conjecture. 

Jesse Ware was the successor of the Stedmans at Schlosser, 
and before his death related to the compiler of the first edition ol 
the Life of Mary Jemison, the story as he assumed to have heard 
it from William Stedman, the brother and successor of John 
Stedman, who was one of the two that escaped. The relation 
was in substance as follows: — 

After the possession of Fort Niagara and Schlosser, by the 
English, Sir Willi a3i Johnson made a contract with John 
Stedman to construct a portage road between Lewiston and 
Schlosser, to facilitate the transportation of provisions and military 
stores from one place to the other. The road was finished on the 
20th of June, 1763, and twenty-five loaded wagons started to go 
over it, under the charge of Stedman, as the contractor for army 
transportation; accompanied by "fifty soldiers and their ofl[icers," 
as a guard. A large force of Seneca Indians, in anticipation of 
this movement, had collected and laid in ambush near what is now 
called the Devil's Hole. As the English party were passing the 
place, the Indians sallied out, surrounded teams, drivers, and guard, 
and "either killed on the spot, or drove oflf the banks," the whole 
party, "except Mr. Stedman, who was on horseback." An Indian 
seized his bridle reins, and was leading him east to the w^oods, 
through the scene of bloody strife, probably for the purpose of 
devoting him to the more excruciating torments of a sacrifice; 
but while the captor's attention was drawn in another direction for 
a moment, Stedman with his knife, cut the reins near the bits, at 
the same time thrusting his spurs into the flanks of his horse, and 
dashing into the forest, the target of an hundred Indian rifles. He 
escaped unhurt. Bearing east about two miles, he struck Gill 
creek, w^hich he followed to Schlosser. \Xj^ See some subsequent 
remarks upon the claim instituted by the Stedmans, or their 
successor, to lands, based upon this flight, and a consequent Indian 
gift. 

"From all accounts," says the biographer we have relied upon 
for the above statement, "of this barbarous transaction, Mr. 
Stedman was the only person belonging to this party who was 
not either driven, or thrown off" into the Devil's Hole." Tradition 



230 HISTORY OF THE 

has transmitted to us various accounts of the fate of some few 
others of the party; that is, that one, two, or three others escaped 
with life, after being driven off the bank, although badly wounded, 
and maimed by the fall. Most of the accounts agree in the escape 
of a little drummer * who was caught while falling, in the limb of 
a tree, by his drum-strap. 

Mrs. Jemison says that no attempt was made to procure 
plunder, or take prisoners. The object, sanguinary as was the 
means used to accomplish it, was not mercenary, but formed a 
})art of a general concerted plan to rid the country of the English. 

The account of Sir William Johnson, which the author, 
considering that it is both cotemporary and official, is disposed to 
rely upon, rather than the traditionary accounts, gives a different 
complexion to the whole affair, than the hitherto generally 
accredited version. The inference would be from his statement, 
that the cavalcade of wagons, teamsters, and guard of twenty-four 
men, was first attacked, and was reinforced after the attack by 
the two companies, who, he says, "marched to sustain them." 
This would protract the action beyond a sudden attack, and such a 
summary result as has before been given; and favor the conclusion 
that the advance party was first attacked as stated, and that those 
who came to their relief, shared a similar fate. Though the 
discrepancy is perhaps not material. 

HoNAYEwus, or Farmer's Brother, an active Seneca war chief 
in the Border Wars of the Revolution, was in this battle, or rather 
surprise and massacre. It was one of his earliest advents upon 
the war-path. 

The pioneer settlers upon the frontier, especially in the neighbor- 
hood of Lewiston and the Falls, say that at an early period relics 
of this horrid tragedy were abundant, in this deep gorge. They 
consisted of skulls, of human bones, and bones of oxen, pieces of 
wagons, gun barrels, bayonets, &c., &c. 

* The storv of the drummer is mainly true. Seeing the fate that awaited him, he 
leaped from the high bank ; the strap of his drum catching upon the limb of a tree, his 
descent, or fall, was broken, and he struck in the river, near the shore, but little 
injured by the terrible leap of one hundred and fifty feet ! His name was Matthews. 
He lived until within a few years, in the neighborhood of Queenston, to relate the stor\' 
of his wonderful preservation. 

Note. — Mrs. Jemison says the first neat cattle that were brought upon the Genesee 
river were the oxen that the Senecas obtained of the English in the previous affair at 
Schlosser. As that was an attack upon a military expedition, where no oxen would be 
likely to have been used, it is probable that those she speaks of were such as were 
preserved at the affair of the Devil's Hole. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 231 



BATTLE NEAR BUFFALO. 



In a few weeks after this too successful onslaught of the 
Senecas upon the EngUsh, they followed it up by an attack upon 
a detachment of English troops, on their way from Niagara to 
Detroit: — 

From the Maryland Gazette, December 22, 1763. 

"JVet« York, December 5. — Last Monday, Capt. Gardiner of the 
55th, and Lieut. Stoughton, came to town from Albany. They 
belonged to a detachment of 600 men under the command of 
Major WiLKiNs, destined for Detroit, from Niagara; but on the 
19th of October, at the east end of Lake Erie, one hundred and 
sixty of our people being in their boats, were fired upon from the 
beach by about eighty Indians, which killed and wounded thirteen 
men, (and among them Lieut. Johnson, late of Goi'ham's, killed,) 
in the two stern-most boats, the remainder of the detachment 
being ahead about half a mile. Capt. Gardiner, who was in the 
boats adjoining, immediately ordered the men, (fifty) under his 
command, ashore, and took possession of the ground from which 
the enemy had fired; and as soon as he observed our people 
landing, he with Lieut. Stoughton, and twenty-eight men pursued 
the Indians. In a few minutes a smart skirmish ensued, which 
lasted near an hour, in which three men were killed on the spot, 
and Capt. Gardiner, with Lieut. Stoughton and ten others, 
badly wounded. During the skirmish, the troops that did not 
follow the Indians formed on the bank, and covered the boats." 



The attacks upon the English at Schlosser, the Devil's Hole, 
and at the foot of lake Erie, were all the out-breaks of the 
Senecas, during the disaffection that followed the English advent, 
of which there is any record, or well authenticated tradition. 
From some correspondence which occurred between General 
Amherst and Sir William Johnson, which have been preserved 
in the Broadhead documents, it would seem that the English 
attributed the hostilities of the Senecas to the evil influences of 
the French who remained among them as traders, or as adopted 
Senecas. This is likely to have been the case, though it is 
apparent that all along the Seneca branch of the Iroquois espe- 
cially, had resolved to maintain their independence, and resist the 
encroachments of both the French and the English. After the 
French were conquered, it was natural for the Senecas to adopt 
them as allies in any contest they had with the conquerors. 



232 HISTORY OF THE 

But after the failure of the scheme of Pontiac at the west, the 
promulgation of the peace of Paris here, and the consequent sub- 
mission of the French to the rule of their conquerors, the Senecas, 
as did the Indian nations generally, concluded that acquiescence and 
non-resistance was the best policy. By a letter from Lieut. Gov. 
Golden to the Board of Trade, dated Dec. 19th, 1763, it seems 
that they had then sued for peace. In Mante's History of the 
French War, the preliminary articles of this peace are given. It 
was entered into at Johnson's Hall, April 3d, 1764, between Sir 
William Johnson and eight deputies of the Seneca nation, viz: — 
Tagaancdie, Kaanijes, Chonedaga, Aughnawawis, Sagenqueraghta, 
Wanughsisiae, Tagnoondie, Taanjaqua. 

They were to cease all hostilities immediately; never more to 
make war on the English, or suffer their people to commit acts 
of violence on the persons or property of any of his Majesty's 
subjects; forthwith to collect and deliver up all English prisoners, 
deserters. Frenchmen and negroes; and neither more to harbor or 
conceal either. They ceded as follows: — "To His Majesty, and 
his successors forever, in full right, the lands from Fort Niagara 
extending easterly along lake Ontario about four miles, compre- 
hending the Petit-Marais, or landing place, and running from 
thence southerly about fourteen miles to the creek above Fort 
Schlosser or Little Niagara, and down the same to the river, or 
strait, and across the same, at the great cataract; thence northerly 
to the banks of lake Ontario, at a creek, or small lake about two 
miles west of the fort; thence easterly along the banks of lake 
Ontario, and across the river, or strait, to Fort Niagara; compre- 
hending the whole carrying place, with the lands on both sides of 
the strait, [or river,] and containing a tract of about fourteen miles 
in length, and four in breadth. And the Senecas do engage never 
to obstruct the passage of the carrying place, or the free use of 
any part of the said tract; and will likewise give free liberty of 
cutting timber for the use of His Majesty, or that of the garrisons, 
in any other part of their country, not comprehended therein."* 



* This is the first tract of land to which the Indian title was extinguished, in Wes- 
tern New York. The reader will have no difficulty in determining the boundariee. 
It included both banks of the Niagara river, the Falls, Schlosser, Lewiston, Fort Ni- 
agara, Niagara, C. W. and the mouth of the Four-mile-creek. It will be observed of 
course, that the Senecas here assumed that their dominion extendted over the Niagara 
river. This is based undoubtedlv upon their conquest over the Neuter Nation 
IE? See pages 66, 67, 68. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 233 

They farther agreed to grant a free passage through their 
country, from that of the Cayugas to Niagara, or elsewhere, for 
the use of His Majesty's troops forever; and the free use to His 
Majesty forever, of the harbors w^ithin the country on lake Ontario, 
or any of the rivers; immediately to stop all intercourse of their 
people with the hostile Shawnees, and to assist His Majesty's arms 
in bringing them to proper punishment. Sir William grants a 
free pardon for past transgressions. 

This treaty was to be fully ratified by Sir William Johnson 
and the Senecas, the ensuing summer at Fort Niagara. But the 
Senecas, even after this, proved somewhat refractory. In the 
ensuing summer, Sir William accompanied the expedition of Gen. 
Bradstreet as far as Niagara, to attend there a congress of 
friendly Indian nations, convened to exchange with the English 
sentiments of peace and alliance, make purchases, receive presents, 
and some of them to offer themselves as volunteers under Gen. 
Bradstreet. About seventeen hundred had assembled; but the 
Senecas were not among them. Sir William sent them repeated 
messages to come in and ratify their treaty, which they answered 
by repeated promises of attendance. It was found that they were 
in council deliberating whether they should renew the war or 
confirm the peace. Gen. Bradstreet sent them a peremptory 
message, in substance, that if they did not repair to Niagara and 
fulfill their engagements in five days, he would send a force and 
destroy their settlements. This brought them in. They ratified 
their treaty, and received some presents. 



BURNT SHIP BAY — NIAGARA RIVER. 



It will have been seen that the small French garrison at 
Schlosser, held out and successfully resisted the first attack. The 
fall of Quebec, however, convinced them that all was lost, and 
anticipating another attack, they resolved on the destruction of 
two armed vessels, lying in the river, having on board their 
military stores. The vessels were taken into the arm of the river 
that separates a small Island from the foot of Grand Island, and 
burned down to the water's edge; after which the hulls sunk. In 
low water, the wrecks are now plain to be seen. In an early 
period of settlement of the frontier, the hulls were partly exposed; 



234 HISTORY OF THE 

anchors, chains, cannon balls, grape and cannister shot, irons 
belonging to the upper rigging, used to be taken from them by the 
early settlers. The hulls are now mostly covered with mud, sand 
and gravel. The Bay derives its name from the circumstances 
here related.* 



GENERAL BRADSTREET'S EXPEDITION. 



By far the best account of this expedition that has come under 
the author's observation, is contained in Mante's History, already 
cited; a rare work, which but a small portion of our readers can 
have seen. From that source, mainly, our brief notice of it is 
derived. The expedition was the result of the war that Pontiai 
and his confederates had waged at the west, and was intended to 
over-awe the hostile Indians, recover the captured garrisons, and 
secure a general peace. Gen. Bradstreet, who had headed the 
successful expedition against Fort Frontenac, was the leader in this. 
His orders were to "give peace to all such nations of Indians as 
would sue for it, and chastise those who would continue in arms." 
The expedition, consisting of about twelve hundred troops, came 
from Albany to Oswego, where it was joined by a band of warriors 
of the Six Nations.! From Oswego it came by water, to Fort 
Niagara, where it halted and remained until Sir William Johnson, 
had perfected his treaty with the Senecas. Still distrustful of the 
Senecas, Lieut. Montressor had been ordered to throw up a 
chain of redoubts, from the landing place at the Four-niile-creek, 
to Schlosser, "in order to prevent any insults from the enemy, in 
transporting the provisions, stores and boats, from one lake to 
another, and likewise to erect a fort on the banks of Lake Erie, 
for the security of vessels employed upon it; and these services 
were effectually performed before the arrival of the army."| 

* Pieces of the wreck are now often procured, as relics of olden time. The author 
procured from one of them, during the last summer, an oak plank. The timber — 
after remaining 89 years under water, is sound, and when the water is dried out, is 
verj- hard, and susceptible of a fine polish. 

t It may not be generally known, even to those familiar with colonial history, that 
Israel Putnam, once trod the soil of Western New York. He was in the expedition 
of Bradstreet, a Lieut. Colonel of the Connecticut battalion, as the newspapers of that 
day clearly show. 

t This was the origin of Fort Erie. The author finds no authority for assuming (as 
some tourists and authors of Sketch Books have,) that the French ever had a postal 
that point. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 235 

The army moved to Fort Schlosser on the 6th of August, 
when it halted until the 8th, for the arrival of an additional Indian 
force which was to accompany it. It consisted of three hundred 
Senecas, who, Mr. Mante says, Gen. Bradstreet "thought him- 
self compelled to regard as spies, rather than employ them as 
auxiliaries." The aggregate force of the expedition now amounted 
to about three thousand. The army moved up the Niagara, to 
Fort Erie, and from thence, on the 10th, continued its route along 
the south side of the lake, agreeable to the instructions of Gen. 
Gage. In the morning of the 12th, while detained at VAnse-Aux- 
Feidlles [Bay of Leaves]* by contrary winds, he received a depu- 
tation from the Shawnces, the Delawares, the Hurons of Sandusky 
and the Five Nations of the Sciota Plains, sueing for a peace; 
and in the evening he gave them an audience in the presence of 
the sachems, and other chiefs of the Indians who accompanied him. 
These Indians made excuses for hostile conduct, and begged for- 
giveness, which Gen. Bradstreet granted, and proceeded to 
Detroit, where he held other conferences. On his way up he had 
burned the Indian corn-fields and villages at Sandusky, and along the 
Maumee, and dispersed the Indians wherever he had found them. 
The confederates of Pontiac, with the exception of the Delawares 
and Shawnees, finding they could not successfully compete with 
such a force, laid down their arms, and concluded a treaty of peace. 

Poxtiac, sullenly, stood aloof from the negotiations. He went 
to Illinois, yielding none but a tacit aquiescence to measures of 
necessity, in which he clearly foresaw the dispersion and gradual 
extinction of his race, which has followed the events we have been 
narrating. He was assassinated by a Peoria Indian. The Ottawas, 
the Pottawottamies, and the Chippewas, made common cause in 
avenging his death, by waging war, and nearly exterminating the 
tribes of the murderer. "The living marble and the glowing 
canvass may not embody his works; but they are identified with 
the soil of the western forest, and will live as long as the 
remembrance of its aboriginal inhabitants, the Algonquin race." t 

* Maumee Bay. 

t Lanman's Histon of Michigan. 



236 HISTORY OF THE 



CHAPTER 11. 



EARLY GLIMPSES OF WESTERN NEW YORK. 



A primitive glimpse of the western portion of this state, has 
been reserved for insertion here, — though not in its order of time. 
It is by far the earliest notice, of any considerable detail, which 
we derive from English sources; if in fact it is not the earliest 
record of any English advent to our region. The author is 
disposed to conclude that the writer was the first Englishman that 
saw the country west of the lower valley of the Mohawk. His 
advent was but three years after the English took final possession 
of the Province of New York, and ten years previous to the 
expedition of De Nonville. It is taken from " Chalmer's Political 
Annals of the United Colonies,^'' a work published in London, in 
1780:—"^ 

"OBSERVATIONS OF WENT WORTH GREENHALPH. 

"/n a journey frovi Albany to the Indians westward, [</(e Five Nations,'] — begun the 
^28th of May, 1677, and ended the I4th qf July following. * 

[Note. — What is said of the " Maquas, (Mohawks,) Oneydoes, Onondagoes, and 
Cayugas," is omitted, and the journal commences wtth the Senecas.] 

"The Senecas have four towns, viz: — Canagorah, Tistehatan, 
Canoenada, Keint-he. Canagorah and Tistehatan lie within thirty 
miles of the Lake Frontenac; the other two about four or five 
miles to the southward of these; they have abundance of corn. 
None of their towns are stockadoed. 

"Canagorah lies on the top of a great hill, and, in that as well as 
in the bigness, much like Onondagoe, [which is described as 'situ- 
ated on a hill that is very large, the bank on each side extending 
itself at least two miles, all cleared lands, whereon the corn is 
planted,'] containing 150 houses, north-westward of Cayuga 72 
miles. 

* Mr. Chalmers purports to derive the journal "from New York papers " meaning 
as is presumed, the manuscripts of the New York "Board of Trade." 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 237 

''Here the Indians were very desirous to see us ride our horses, 
which we did. They made feasts and dancing, and invited us, 
that, when all the maids were together, both we and our Indians 
might choose such as liked us to lie with. 

■"Tistehatan lies on the edge of a hill: not much cleared ground; 
is near the river Tistehatan, which signifies bending.^ It lies to the 
northward of Canagorah about 30 miles; contains about 120 houses, 
being the largest of all the houses we saw; the ordinary being 50 
or 60 feet, and some 130 or 140 feet long, with 13 or 14 fires in 
one house. They have good store of corn growing about a mile 
to the northward of the town. 

"Being at this place, on the 17th of June, there came 50 pris- 
oners from the south-westward, and they were of two nations; 
some whereof have a few guns, the other none. One nation is 
about ten days' journey from any Christians, and trade only with 
one great house,! not far from the sea; and the other, as they say, 
trade only with a black people. This day, of them were burnt 
two women and a man, and a child killed with a stone. At night 
we heard a great noise, as if the houses had all fallen; but it was 
only the inhabitants driving away the ghosts of the murdered. 

"The 18th, going to Canagorah, we overtook the prisoners. 
When the soldiers saw us, they stopped each his prisoner, and 
made him sing and cut off' their fingers and slashed their bodies 
with a knife; and, when they had sung, each man confessed how 
many men he had killed. That day, at Canagorah, there were 
most cruelly burned four men, four women and one boy; the 
cruelty lasted about seven hours: when they were almost dead, 
letting them loose to the mercy of the boys, and taking the hearts 
of such as were dead to feast on. 

"Canoenada lies about 4 miles to the southward of Canagorah; 
contains about 30 houses, well furnished with corn. 

"Keint-he lies about 4 or 5 miles to the southward of Tiste- 
hatan; contains about 24 houses, well furnished with corn. 

"The Senekas are counted to be in all about 1000 fighting men. 

" Whole force— Magas, 300 

Oneydoes, 200 

Onondagoes, 3.50 

Cayugas 300 

Senekas 1000 

2150 fighting men."t 

* The Tistehatan, or bending River, must refer to the Genesee. 

t Probably among the Swedes on the Delaware — Penn had not yet commenced his 
settlement. 

X "Among the manuscripts of Sir William Johnson, there is a census of the 
northern and western Indians, from the Hudson River to the great Lakes and the Mis- 
sissippi, taken in 1763. The Mohawk warriors were then only 160; the Oneidas 250; 
Tuscaroras, 140; Onondagas 150; Cayugas, 200; Senecas, 1050; totaK 1950. Accord- 
ing to the calculation of a British agent, several of the tribes must have increased 
between the close of the French war and beginning of the American Revolution, as it 



•238 HISTORY OF THE 

'■'■Remark. — During the year 1685 an accurate account was 
taken by order of the Governor, of the people of Canada, [New 
France]; which amounted to 17,000, of whom three thousand 
were supposed to be able to carry arms. We may thence form a 
judgment with regard to the comparative strength of the two 
beligerent powers, whose wars were so long and destructive." — 
Chalmer's Annals. 



The Rev. Samuel Kir kl and, whose name we have had occa- 
sion to introduce in connection with the antiquities of this region, 
left the mission station at Johnson's Hall, on the Mohawk, Jan. 
16th. 1765, in company with two Seneca Indians, upon a mission 
which embraced all the settlements of the Iroquois, travelling upon 
snow shoes, carrying "a pack containing his provisions, a few 
articles of clothing, and a few books, weighing in all about forty 
pounds." — Leaving the last vestige of civilization, (Johnson's Hall,) 
his only companions, two Indians with whom he -had had but a 
short acquaintance, the young missionary shaped his course to the 
westward, encamping nights (with his two guides with whom he 
could hold no conversation except by signs,) beneath hemlock 
bows, and sleeping upon ground cleared from snoM^, for his tem- 
porary use. Arriving at Onondaga, the central council fire of the 
Iroquois, a message, from Sir William Johnson secured him a 
friendly reception. After remaining there one day, the party left, 
and came on to Kanadasagea, the principal town of the Senecas. 
Flalting at the skirts of the town, (a courtesy that his Mr. K."s 
Indian guides told him by signs, was customary,) a messenger 
came out to enquire, "whence they came, whither they were going, 
and what was their desire." His guides replied: — "W^c are only 
bound to this place, and wish to be conducted to the house of 
the chief sachem." The embassy was conducted into the presence 
of the sachem, to whom, as at Onondaga, a message was delivered 
from Sir William Johnson. The reception was friendly, except 
with a few, "whose sullen countenances" Mr. K. says "he did not 



was computed that, during the latter contest, the English had in service, 300 Mohawks, 
150 Oneidas, '200 Tuscaroras, 300 Onondagas, 230 Cayugas, and 400 Senecas. 

Note. — There can be but little doubt that the four villages mentioned by Mr. 
Greenhalph, are those that were ten years afterwards destroyed by Do Nonville. The 
over-estimate of distances, made by this early adventurer, may well be attributed to the 
absence of any means to ascertain them correctly. In the names, as given by De 
Nonville, and by Mr. Greenhalph, there is sufficient analog)' to warrant the identity. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 239 

quite like." The liead sachem treated him with every kindness 
and attention, and it was after much deliberation and consul- 
tation among the Indians, determined that he should fix his resi- 
dence with them. Through a Dutch trader, who had preceded 
him, and located at Kanadasagea, he communicated freely with 
the Indians. A few weeks after his arrival, he was formally 
adopted as a member of the family of the head sachem. This 
adoption was attended with formalities — a council, speeches, &c. 
The council having assembled, ''the head sachem's family being 
present and sitting apart by themselves," Mr. Kirkland was 
waited upon and invited to attend. On his entrance, after a short 
silence, one of the chiefs spoke: — 

"Brothers, — open your ears and your eyes. You see here our 
white brother who has come from a great distance, recommended 
to us by our great chief, Sir William Johnson, who has enjoined 
it upon us to be kind to him, and to make him comfortable and 
protect him to the utmost of our power. He comes to do us good. 
Brothers, — this young white brother of ours, has left his father's 
house, and his mother, and all his relations, we must now provide 
for him a house, I am appointed to you and to our young white 
brother, that our head sachem adopts him into his family. He will 
be a father to him, and his wife will be a mother, and his sons and 
daughters, his brothers and sisters." 

The head sachem then rose, called him his son, and led him to 
Ills family. Mr. K. thanked him, and told him he hoped the Great 
Spirit would make him a blessing to his new relations. The 
zealous and enterprising young missionary, says in his journal: — 
"A smile of cheerfulness sat on every countenance, and I could 
not refrain from tears; tears of joy and gratitude for the kind 
Providence that had protected me through a long journey, brought 
me to the place of my desire, and given me so kind a reception 
among the poor savage Indians." 

Mr. K. applied himself diligently to learn the Seneca language, 
and by the help of two woi'ds, ^^ atkayason,^'' (what do you call 
this,) and " sointaschnagati," (speak it again,) he made rapid 
progress. He was made very comfortable and treated very 
kindly. 

All things were going on well, but friendly relations were 
destined to an interruption. The missionary had been assigned a 
residence with an Indian family, whose head was a man of much 
influence with his people; — "sober, mdustrious, honest, and telling 



240 HISTORY OF THE 

no lies." Unfortunately, in a few days after Mr. K. had become 
an inmate of his wigwam, he sickened and died. Such of the 
Senecas as were jealous of the new comer, seized upon the 
circumstance to create prejudice against him, even alledging that 
the death was occasioned by his magic, or if not, that it was an 
'' intimation of the displeasure of the Great Spirit at his visit and 
residence among them, and that he must be put to death." Coun- 
cils were convened, there were days of deliberation, touching 
what disposition should be made of the missionary — the chief 
sachem proving his fast friend, and opposing all propositions to 
harm him. During the time, a Dutch trader, a Mr. Womp, on his 
way from Niagara east, stopped at Kanadaseaga, and he was the 
only medium through which Mr. K. could learn from day to day, 
the deliberations of the council. At length his friend, the sachem, 
informed him joyfully, that " all was peace." 

Some proceedings of the Council afterwards transpired, that 
Mr. Kirkland was enabled to preserve in his journal. It was 
opened by an address from the chief sachem: — 

"Brothers, — this is a dark day to us; a heavy cloud has 
gathered over us. The cheering rays of the sun are obscured; 
the dim, faint light of the moon sijmpatliises with us. A great and 
awakening event has called us together, the sudden death of one 
of our best men; a great breach is made in our Councils, a living 
example of peace, sobriety and industry, is taken from us. Our 
whole town mourns, for a good man is gone. He is dead. Our 
white brother had lived with him a few days. Our white brother 
is a good young man. He loves Indians. He comes recom- 
mended to us by Sir William Johnson, who is commis- 
sioned by the great king beyond the waters to be our super- 
intendent. Brothers, attend! The Great Spirit has supreme 
power over life. He, the upholder of the skies, has most certainly 
brought about this solemn event by his will, and without any other 
help, or second cause. Brothers, let us deliberate wisely; let us 
determine with great caution. Let us take counsel under our 
great loss, with a tender mind. This is the best medicine and was 
the way of our fathers." 

A long silence ensued, which was broken by a chief of great 
influence, who was ambitious of supreme control. He made a 
long and inflammatory harrangue against the missionary. Among 
other things, he said: — 

" This white skin, whom we call our brother, has come upon a 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 241 

dark design, or he would not have travelled so many hundred 
miles. He brings with him the white people^ s Book. They call it 
Gocts Holy Book. Brothers attend! You know this book was 
never made for Indians. The Great Spirit gave us a book for 
ourselves. He wrote it in our heads. He put it into the minds of 
our fathers, and gave them rules about worshipping him; and our 
fathers strictly observed these rules, and the Upholder of the skies 
was pleased, and gave them success in hunting, and made them victo- 
rious over their enemies in war. Brothers attend! Be assured that 
if we Senecas receive this white man, and attend to the Book made 
solely for white people, we shall become miserable. We shall soon 
loose the spirit of true men. The spirit of the brave warrior and 
the good hunter will be no more with us. We shall be sunk so low 
as to hoe corn and squashes in the field, chop wood, stoop down 
and milk cows, like the negroes among the Dutch people.* 
Brothers, hear me! I am in earnest, because I love my nation, and 
the customs and practices of our fathers; and they enjoyed pleasant 
and prosperous days. If we permit this white skin to remain 
among us, and finally embrace what is written in his book, it will be 
the complete subversion of our national character, as true men. 
Our ancient customs, our religious feasts and offerings, all that our 
fathers so strictly observed, will be gone. Of this are we not 
warned by the sudden death of our good brother and wise sachem? 
Does not the Upholder of the skies, plainly say to us in this: — 
'Hear, attend, ye Senecas! Behold, I have taken one, or per- 
mitted one to he taken from among you in an extraordinary 
manner, which you cannot account for, and thereby to save the 
nation?' Brothers, listen to what I say. Ought not this white 
man's life to make satisfaction for our deceased brother's death ?" 

A long discussion and investigation followed. Mr. Kiukland's 
papers were carried to the council house and examined; the widow 



* The Indian orator, had probably been to Schenectady and Albany, and observed the 
slaves among the Dutch. 

Note. — The author derives this account of the primitive advent of a protestanf 
missionary among the Senecas, from Spark's American Biography. The name of the 
chief sachem of Kanadasegea — Mr. Kirkland's adopted father, and friend — does not 
transpire. The chief who so eloquently spoke for his nation, and ingeniously wrought 
upon the jealousy and superstition of the council, was Onoongwandeka. The speeches 
are given, (as is what else transpired at the time,) as communicated to Mr. Kirkland 
by Mr. Womp. The reader will bear in mind that in this case, as well as in all reports 
of the speeches of uneducated Indians, the reporters, have but caught the ideas of the 
native orators, and s:-*>stituted their own manner of expression. An eloquent idea — 
a beautiful figure of speech — can of course, only be faithfully reported, in corresponding 
words and sentences. For instance, we are not to suppose that the Seneca sachem 
eaid: — "the dim faint light of the moon sympathises with us," but he did probably 
make use of a beautiful figure of speech that justified Mr. Kirkland, in such an 
interpretation. 

16 



242 HISTORY OF THE 

of the deceased was questioned: — she gave a good account of the 
•'young white brother," said "he was always cheerful and pleasant, 
and they had began to love him much." Said one of the opponents 
of Mr. K., "did he never come to your husband's bed-side and 
whisper in his ears, or puff in his facet" "No, never, he always 
sat, or lay down, on his own bunk, and in the evening after we 
were in bed, we would see him get down upon his knees and talk 
with a low voice." This testimony, and the closing speech of the 
head sachem, brought matters to a favorable issue. The speech 
was an able reply to Onoongwandeka — not in opposition to his 
views, as to the effect generally of admitting the white man and 
his Book, but generally, in reference to the witchcraft and sorcery 
charged upon Mr. Kirklaxd, in connection with the sudden death 
of his host. The speech bore down all opposition, and was followed 
by shouts, and applause, in which only fifteen refused to participate. 
The chief sachem said, "our business is done. 1 rake up the 
council fire." 

After this, Mr. Kirkland "lived in great harmony, friendship 
and sociability." Another trouble ensued in the shape of a famine. 
The corn crop for the year previous, had been short, and game 
was scarce at that season of the year, (March.) He wrote to a 
friend that he had " sold a shirt for four Indian cakes, baked in the 
ashes, which he could have devoured at one meal, but on the score 
of prudence had ate only one." He lived for days, on "white oak 
acorns, fried in bear's grease." He gives a long detail of 
suffering and privation, as severe as any of his Jesuit predecessors 
had endured; which terminated in making a return journey through 
the wilderness to .Johnson Hall, where he procured a supply of 
provisions. 

Mr. Kirkland was a missionary among the Six Nations, for eight 
years previous to the Revolution; during that struggle he was 
useful in diverting some portions of them from adhering to the 
British interests; and his name and services are often blended in 
the Indian treaties that followed after the war, and resulted in the 
extinguishment of their title to lands in Western New York. In 
these latter connections, frequent reference to him will occur in 
subsequent pages. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 243 



ACCOUNT OF A FRENCH COLONY, 

Established at Onondaga in 1655. 



Dablon, a Jesuit, established himself in 1655 on or near the 
spot where Salina now stands.* The same year he was joined by 
Sieur Dupuys, an officer from the garrison at Quebec, with fifty 
Frenchmen. The enterprise was encouraged by the Superior 
General of the Catholic Missions, who was desirous of estabhshing 
at this central Iroquois canton a permanent missionary establish- 
ment. It was favored by the Onondagas, but encountered the 
hostility of the Mohawks from its first inception. They attacked 
the party of Dupuys on its way up the St. Lawrence, but were 
repulsed. 

The reception of the party, on their arrival at their destination, 
was cordial and hospitable. Father Merceir, (the Superior 
General,) had accompanied the expedition, and he spared no pains 
to give the arrival an imposing appearance, impress the natives 
with awe and veneration for the religion he wished to introduce, 
and win their friendly regards. Dwellings were erected, and for 
nearly two years, the establishment prospered. 

At length a conspiracy which extended itself through the Iroquois 
cantons, was formed against them. Dupuys, was kept advised of 
all that was transpiring, by friendly Indians. Deliberating whether 
he would fortify himself and sustain a siege, or retreat to Quebec, 
he resolved on the latter. 

" To effect his escape M. Dupuys required first to construct some 
canoes, for they had not taken the precaution to reserve any. But 
to work at them publicly would be to announce his retreat, and 
thereby render it impossible. Something must be resolved on 
immediately, and the commandant adopted the following plan. He 
immediately sent an express to M. D' Aillebout to inform him of 
the conspiracy. He then gave orders for the construction of some 
small light batteaux; and to prevent the Iroquois from getting the 
wind of it, he made his people work in the garret of the Jesuit's 
house, which was larger and more retired than the others. 

"This done, he warned all his people to hold themselves in 
readiness to depart on the day which he named to them, and he 
supplied each one with provisions sufficient for the voyage, and 
rharged them to do nothing in the mean time to excite the suspi- 
cions of the Iroquois. It only remained now to concert measures 
for embarking so secretely that the savages should have no knowl- 

* Barber and Howe's Historical Collections. 



244 HISTORY OF THE 

edge of their retreat until they should have advanced so far as not 
to fear pursuit, and this they accomplished by a stratagem singular 
enough. 

" A certain young Frenchman who had acquired great influence 
with the Indians, had been adopted into one of their most respect- 
able families. According to the custom of the Indians, whoever 
was adopted by them became entitled to all the privileges that 
belonged to native members of the families. This young man went 
one day to his adopted father, and told him that he had on the 
night before dreamed of one of those feasts where the guests eat 
every thing that is served, and that he desired to have one of the 
kind made for the village; and he added, that it was deeply 
impressed upon his mind he should die if a single thing were 
wanting to render the feast just such a one as he described. The 
Indian gravely replied that he should be exceedingly sony to have 
him die, and would therefore order the repast himself and take 
care to make the invitations, and he assured him that nothing 
should be wanting to render the entertainment every way such an 
one as he wished. The young man having obtained these assu- 
rances, appointed for his feast the 19th of March, which was the 
day fixed upon for the departure of the French. All the provis- 
ions which the families through the village could spare were 
contributed for the feast, and all the Indians were invited to attend. 

"The entertainment began in the evening, and to give the 
French an opportunity to put their boats into the water and to load 
them for the voyage without being observed, the drums and trumpets 
ceased not to sound around the scene of festivity. 

"The boats having now been launched and every thing put in 
readiness for a departure, the young man, at the signal agreed 
upon, went to his adopted father and said to him, that he pitied the 
guests, who had for the most part asked quarter, that they might 
cease eating, and give themselves to repose, and adding, that he 
meant to procure for every one a good night's sleep. He began 
playing on the guitar, and in less than a quarter of an hour every 
Indian was laid soundly to sleep. The young Frenchman immedi- 
ately sallied forth to join his companions, who were ready at the 
instant to push from the shore. 

"The next morning a number of Indians went, according to 
their custom on awaking, to see the French, and found all the 
doors of their houses shut and locked. This strange circumstance, 
joined to the profound silence which everywhere reigned through 
the French settlement, surprised them. They imagined at first 
that the French were saying mass, or that they were in secret 
council; but after having in vain waited for many hours to have 
the mystery solved, they went and knocked at some of the doors. 
The dogs who had been left in the houses replied to them by bark- 
ing. They perceived some fowls also through the palings, but no 
person could be seen or heard. At length, having waited until 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 245 

evening, they forced open the doors, and to their utter astonishment 
found every house empty.* 



Previous to the Revolution, white settlement did not advance 
beyond the low^er Mohawk valley. The period of the early 
settlement of Schenectady will have been noticed. 

The pioneer emigrants, that began the march of civilization and 
improvement, west of Schenectady, were as the Plymouth colonists 
of New England, refugees for the sake of religion and conscience. 
"Early in the eighteenth century, near three thousand German 
Palatines emigrated to this country under the patronage of Queen 
Anne; most of them settled in Pennsylvania; a few made their way 
from Albany, in 1713, over the Helleberg, to Schoharie creek, and 
under the most discouraging circumstances, succeeded in effecting 
a settlement upon the rich alluvial lands bordering upon that 
stream. Small colonies from here and from Albany, and Sche- 
nectady, established themselves in various places along the Mohawk, 
and in 1722, had extended as far up as the German Flats, near 
where stands the village of Herkimer; but all the inhabitants were 
found in the neighborhood of those streams; none had ventured out 
in that unbroken wilderness, which lay to the south and west of 
these settlements." f 

This branch of the emigrating Palatines, (there were three 
thousand, in all, that arrived in New York,) consisted of about 
seven hundred persons. Their location, "began on the little 
Schoharie kill, in the town of Middleburg, at the high water mark 
of the Schoharie river, at an oak stump burned hollow, which is 
said to have served the Mohegan and Stockbridge Indians, the 
purposes of a corn-mill; and ran down the river to the north, 
taking in the flats on both sides of the same, a distance of eight or 
ten miles, containing twenty thousand acres.'' | They settled in 
Indian villages, or doi'fs, under the direction of seven individuals, 
as captains, or commissaries. As these were primitive adventurers, 
in this direction — and as their names are associated intimately, 
with early times; and even now are blended with almost every 
reference to the valley of the Mohawk, and especially "Old 

* Manuscript history, of the Rev. J. W. Adams, Syracuse. 

t Campbell's Annals of Tiyon County. 

t Simm's History of Schoharie and the Border Ware. 



246 HISTORY OF THE 

Schoharie," — the author inserts such of them as he finds in Mr. 
Simm's history: — There were the Keysers, Boucks, Rickards, 
Rightmyers, Warners, Weavers, Zimmers, Mathers, Zeks, BelUn- 
gers, Borsts, Schoolcrafts, Kryslers, Cassehinans, Newkirks, Ear- 
harts, Browns, Mcrkleys, Foxes, Berkers, Balls, Weidhams, Deitzs, 
Manns, Garlocks, Sternbergs, Kneiskerns, Stubrachs, Endorses, 
Sidneys, Bergs, Houcks, Hartmans, Smidtz, Lawyers. 

Their lands were granted them by the Queen, as were provisions, 
while emigrating; but after leaving Albany they had to depend 
upon their own resources, and they were as few perhaps as were 
ever possessed by any forest pioneers, in the settlement of a new 
country. Upon game, ground-nuts, fish, and a little grain they 
could procure by going on foot to Schenectady, pursuing an Indian 
path, they contrived to subsist for the first year, when getting a 
little ground cleared, they managed to raise some wheat and corn, 
without any ploughs or teams to use them with. They raised the 
first wheat in 1711. It was cultivated with the hoe, like corn. 
For several years, when going to Schenectady to mill, or upon 
other errands, they went in large parties, as a precaution against 
the attacks of wild beasts. 

In 1735, small settlements of Germans had been made at 
(^anajoharie and Stone Arabia. 

In 1739, a Scotchman by the name of Lindsay, who had 
obtained by assignment from three other partners, a tract of 8000 
acres of land, which is embraced in the town and village of Cherry 
Valley, became a resident there. His family consisted of his wife 
and father-in-law, a Mr. Congreve, and a few domestics. His 
location was named "■ Lindsay's Bush." The proprietor cultivated 
the friendship of the Indians. His nearest white neighbors, were 
fifteen miles off, upon the Mohawk, and he had no way of 
approaching it except by a difficult Indian trail. He was a Scotch 
gentleman; — a taste for the romantic — a fondness for the chase, 
which was fully gratified by abundance of wild game in that 
region, had prompted him to adopt a back-woods life; but he 
soon began to experience some of its hardships. The snow fell 
to a great depth in the winter of 1740, — he was short of provi- 
sions, and could not get to the settlements for a supply. He was 
relieved by a friendly Indian, who making his journeys on snow 
shoes, obtained food for him and his house-hold, for the winter. 
In 1741 he was joined by the Rev. Samuel Dunlop, David Ramsay, 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 247 

Willam Gait, James Campbell, William Dickinson, and one or two 
others, with their families; in all about thirty persons. In 1744, 
they had a grist and saw-mill, and an increasing, flourishing settle- 
ment. It was however harrassed, during the French and English 
war, by some portions of the Six Nations, in the French interests. 
Its inhabitants were frequently, during the war, called out to defend 
the northern frontiers. This was the germ of the settlement of a 
large district of country, which in our early histories, was included 
under the name of Cherry Valley. 



SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON. 



The year 1740, is signalized by the advent upon the Mohawk, 
of one who was destined to exercise an important influence, and 
occupy a conspicuous place in our colonial history. Sir William 
Johnson was a native of Ireland. He left his native country in 
consequence of the unfavorable issue of a love affair. His uncle, 
Sir Peter Warren, an Admiral in the EngUsh navy, owned by 
government grant, a large tract of land — 15,000 acres — withhi 
the present town of Florida, Montgomery county. Young John- 
son became his agent, and located himself in the year above 
named, at Warren's Bush, a few miles from the present village of 
Port Jackson. He now began that intercourse with the Indians 
which was to prove so beneficial to the English, in the last French 
war that soon followed, the influences of which were to be so 
prejudicial to the colonial interests, in the war of the Revolu- 
tion. He made himself familiar with their language, spoke it with 
ease and fluency; watched their habits and pecuUarities; studied 
their manners, and by his mildness and prudence, gained their favor 
and confidence, and an unrivalled ascendancy over them. In all 
important matters he was generally consulted by them, and his 
advice followed. In 1755, he was entrusted with a command in 
the provincial service of New York. He marched against Crown 
Point, and after th-e repulse of Col. Williams, he defeated and 
took DiESKU prisoner. For this service the Parliament voted him 
five thousand pounds, and the King made him a Baronet. The 
reader will have noticed his effective agency in keeping the Six 
Nations in the English interests, and his military achievement at 
Niagara. 

From the following notice, which appeared in a contemporary 



248 HISTORY OF THE 

publication — the London Gentleman's Magazine, for September, 
1755 — it will be seen how well adapted he was to the peculiar 
offices and agencies that devolved upon him. It is an extract of a 
journal written in this country: — 

"Major General Johnson (an Irish gentleman,) is universally 
esteemed in our parts, for the part he sustains. Besides his sldll 
and experience as an officer, he is particularly happy in making 
himself beloved by all sorts of people, and can conform to all 
companies and conversations. He is very much of the fine gentle- 
man in genteel company. But as the inhabitants next him are 
mostly Dutch, he sits down with them and smokes his tobacco, 
drinks flip, and talks of improvements, bear and beaver skins. 
Being surrounded with Indians, he speaks several of their lan- 
guages well, and has always some of them with him. His house 
is a safe and hospitable retreat for them from the enemy. He 
takes care of their wives and children when they go out on 
parties, and even wears their dress. In short, by his honest 
dealings with them in trade, and his courage, which has often been 
successfully tried with them and his courteous behaviour, he has 
so endeared himself to them, that they chose him one of their 
chief sachems or princes, and esteem him as their common father." 

Miss Eleanor Wallaslous, a fair and comely Dutch girl, who 
had been sold to limited service in New York, to pay her passage 
across the ocean, to one of his neighbors, soon supplied the place 
of the fair one in Ireland, whose fickleness had been the means of 
impelling him to new scenes and associations in the back-woods of 
America. Although taking her to his bed and board, and for a 
long period acknowledging her as his wife, he was never married 
to her until she was upon her death-bed, a measure necessary to 
legitimatize his three children, who afterwards became. Sir John 
Johnson, Mrs. Guy Johnson, and Mrs. Col. Claus. His next 
wife, was Molly Brant, sister of the conspicuous chieftain of that 
name. He was married to her a few years before his death, for 
the same purpose that was consummated in the previous instance. 

Golden says of Sir William, that "he dressed himself after the 
Indian manner, made frequent dances after their customs when they 
excite to war, and used all the means he could think of, at a con- 
siderable expense, to engage them in a war against Canada." 

The liberal patronage of the English government, arid the 
facility with which he could procure grants of the Indians, made 
him an extensive land-holder. He obtained one grant, in a manner 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 249 

which has made it the subject of a familiar anecdote, from Hen- 
DRicK, a Mohawk chief, of one hundred thousand acres, situated in 
the now county of Herkimer. He had before his death laid the 
foundation of perhaps as large an individual landed estate, as was 
ever possessed in this country. His heirs, taking sides against the 
colonies, in the Revolution, at its close, the whole estate was 
confiscated. 

The Johnson family are so mingled with our early colonial 
history, and the border wars of the Revolution, that most readers 
will be familiar with a subject that has been introduced here, only 
to assist in giving a brief sketch of the progress of settlement 
west of the Hudson previous to the Revolution; and to aid a clear 
understanding of some local events in that contest. 

Sir William Johnson died on the 24th of June, 1774 — having 
for nearly thirty- five years, exercised an almost one man power, 
not only in his own immediate domain, but far beyond it. In his 
character were blended many sterling virtues, with vices that are 
perhaps to be attributed in a greater degree to the freedom of a 
back- woods life, — the absence of the restraints which the ordi- 
nances of civilization imposes, — than to radical defects. His 
talents, it must be inferred, were of a high order; his achievements 
at Niagara alone, would entitle him to the character of a brave 
and skillful military commander; and in the absence of amiable 
social qualities, he could hardly have gained so strong a hold upon 
the confidence and respect of the Six Nations, as we see he 
maintained up to the period of his death. 

He died just as the great struggle of the colonies commenced. 
Had he lived to have participated in it he would probably have 
been found on the side of the mother country. In his case, to the 
ordinary obligations of loyality, were added those of gratitude for 
high favors and patronage. Though it has been inferred that in 
anticipation of the crisis that was approaching, he was somewhat 
wavering in his purposes. Mr. Siivlms, the local historian of the 
Mohawk Valley, upon information derived from those who lived at 
that period, and in the vicinity, favors the conclusion that he died 
by his own hand, to escape a participation in the struggle, which 
his position must have forced upon him: — "As the cloud of colo- 
nial difficulty was spreading from the capital of New England to 
the frontier English settlements, Sir William Johnson was urged 
by the British crown, to take sides with the parent country. He 



'^50 HISTORY OF THE 

had been taken from comparative obscurity, and promoted by the 
government of England, to honors and weaUh. Many wealthy 
and influential friends around him were already numbei-ed among 
the advocates of civil liberty. Should he raise his arm against 
that power that had thus signally honored him? Should he take 
sides with the oppressor against many of his tried friends in many 
perilous adventures? These were serious questions, as we may 
reasonably suppose, which often occupied his mind. The Baronet 
declared to several of his friends, as the storm of civil discord was 
gathering, that 'England and her colonies were approaching a 
terrible war, but that he should never live to witness itJ * At the 
time of his death, a court was sitting at Johnstown, and while in 
the court-room on the afternoon of the day of his death, a 
package from England of a political nature was handed him. 
He left the court-house, went directly home, and in a few hours 
was a corpse." 

While it must remain perhaps, a subject of speculation how Sir 
WiLLiAiM Johnson would have used his powerful influence, had he 
lived, it is quite certain that it would not have been as hurtful 
to the colonies, as that portion of it was, which was inherited, with 
his title, by his son and son-in-law. While they were not his equals 
in talent — had not many of the good qualities he possessed — they 
used the influence that he transmitted to them in a manner that we 
are justified in inferring, it would not have been used, had he lived 
to exercise it. 

Sir William was succeeded in his titles and estate, by his son Sir 
John Johnson; his authoiity as General Superintendent of Indian 
Affairs, fell into the hands of Col. Guv Johnson, his son-in-law. 
who had long been his assistant, as deputy; in which office he was 
assisted by Col. Daniel Claus, who had married another daughter 
of the Baronet. 

Before the close of the French and English war, small settle- 
ments were begun in the neighborhood of the colony commenced 
by Mr. Lindsay. Previous to the American Revolution, a family 
of Harpers, distinguished in that contest, had left Cherry Valley 
and commenced a settlement at Harpersfield, Delaware county. 



* Col. Stone, in his life of Brant, rejects the inference that Sir William committed 
suicide; or that he was embarrassed in reference to the course he should pursue. He 
says, he *' visited England for the last time iu the autumn of 1773, returning the next 
spring. He probably came back with his loyal feelings somewhat strengthened." 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 251 

The Rev. William Johnson had succeeded in planting a flour- 
ishing little colony, on the east side of the Susquehannah, a short 
distance below the forks of the Unadilla, and several families were 
scattered through Springfield, Middlefield, (then called New-Town 
JMartin,) and Laurens and Otego, called Old England District. In 
the year 1716, Philip Groat, made a purchase of land in the 
present town of Amsterdam. He was drowned in removing his 
family to his new home. His widow and her three sons made the 
intended settlement. They erected a grist mill at what is now 
called Crane's Village, in 1730. One of the brothers, Lewis 
Groat, was captured by the Indians in the French and English 
war, and kept in captivity four years. In this war, these primi- 
tive settlers upon the Mohawk were often visited by the French 
Indian allies, and had a foretaste of the horrid scenes that were 
to follow, in a few years. The valley of the Mohawk was the 
theatre of martyrdom and suffering, in two wars. 

In the year 1740 a small colony of Irish emigrants, located in 
the present town of Glen. The Indian disturbances alarmed them, 
and after a few years they returned to Ireland. 

Giles Fonda was the first merchant west of Schenectady. 
His customers were the few settlers upon the Mohawk, and the 
Indians of the Six Nations. He had branches, or depots, at Forts 
Schuyler, Stanwix, Oswego, Niagara and Schlosser. His prin- 
cipal business was to exchange blankets, trinkets, ammunition and 
rum for furs, peltries, and ginseng. 

A church was erected at Caughnawaga, partly under the patron- 
age of Sir William Johnson, in 1765. Churches were erected 
at Stone Arabia, Palatine and German Flats, before the Revolu- 
tion. At an early period a small church was constructed of wood, 
near the Upper Mohawk Castle. A bell that was in use then, was 
brought away by the Mohawks, in their flight westward, and was 
used in the temporary Mohawk settlement at Lewiston. \XIF^ ^^^ 
John Mountpleasant's account of the church, bell, &c. 

Toward the close of the French war, the public debt of the 
Province of New York, obliged a resort to a direct tax. The 
amount levied upon the inhabitants of the "Mohawk Valley," 
which designation then embraced the whole State west of Albany, 
was £242,176. 

In 1772, three years previous to the Revolution, Try on county 



^ HISTORY OF THE 

was taken from Albany.* It embraced all the present state of 
New York, west of a line drawn north and south nearly through 
the center of Schoharie county. It was divided into five districts. 
The first court of ^'■general quarter sessions of the peace,^' was held 
in Johnstown, Sept. 8th, 1772. The Bench consisted of 

Guy Johnson, Judge. 
John Buller, Peter Conyne, Judges. 

Sir John Johnson, Knight, Daniel Claus, John Wells, Jelles Fonda, Asst. Judges. 
John Collins, Joseph Chew, Adam Loucks, John Fry, Francis Young, Peter Ten 
Broek, Justices. 

A glimpse has thus been furnished the reader, of the condition 
of things, in the county of Tryon, preceding a crisis which was 
to make it the theatre of sanguinary scenes; its few and scattered 
inhabitants, sufferers, and not unfrequently martyrs, in the harass- 
ing border war that came upon them to multiply three fold the 
ordinary endurances of the pioneers of the wilderness.f 

* Named in honor of William Tryon, then Governor of the Province. 

t " The population of Chern,' Valley was short of three hundred, and that of the whole 
county of Tryon but a few thousand, when the Revolution commenced." — Campbell's 
Annals. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 253 



CHAPTER III. 



THE BORDER WARS OF THE REVOLUTION. 



In the condition of settlement that has been briefly stated, the 
reader will perceive that all Western New York could have had 
but a remote connexion with the long and eventful struggle that 
ended in a separation of the colonies, and the blessings of a free 
and independent government. While the author has presumed in 
his preceding pages, that there was much of early colonial history, 
having a distinct local relation, with which most of those into 
whose hands his work will fall were not familiar, he will not regard 
it necessary to embrace any portion of a general history — the 
causes and prominent events of the Revolution — which is as 
"familiar as house-hold words," with his readers — formed a por- 
tion of their nursery tales, and are incorporated with the rudiments 
of our primary schools. 

Foremost in its loyalty, effective and vigilant in its services, in 
the French war that had closed by the triumph of the English 
arms, — the province of New York was not backward in prepara- 
tions for asserting its rights, when the period arrived in which 
England, proud of her colonial possessions, but oppressive in its 
government of them, provoked resistance to its unjust requirements. 
"During the long and harrassing French wars, her levies both of 
men and money, considering her population and resources, were 
immense. Her territory was the principal scene of action, and she 
seconded with all her powers the measures adopted by the English 
to destroy the French influence in America." * But loyalty, 
faithful and enduring as it had been, began to be forfeited, and 
the Province of New York was early in so regarding it. 

Its resistance to the stamp act in 1765, paved the way for the 
convening of a congress in New York, the same year. 

* Annals of Tryon Couuty. 



254 HISTORY OF THE 

A public meeting of citizens of Palatine district, in Tryou 
county, was assembled as early as August, 1774. The Boston Port 
Bill had gone into operation in the preceding June. The resolutions 
of that meeting declared unaltered and determined allegiance to 
the British crown, but strenuously remonstrated against an act 
which it regarded as "oppressive and arbitrary,'' and "subversive 
of the rights of English subjects." The meeting approved of a 
previous act of their brethren in New York, in sending five 
delegates to the approaching congress in Philadelphia; and 
appointed a committee of correspondence, consisting of five persons, 
to correspond with committees of Albany and New York. 

The ball thus put in motion, its progress was retarded by all the 
influence of the Johnson family and their adherents. In the spring 
of 1775, after the proceedings of the Philadelphia congress had 
been promulgated, during the session of a court at Johnstown, a 
declaration was drawn up and circulated by the loyalists of Tryon 
county, opposing the proceedings of that congress. It occasioned 
much altercation, but was finally signed by most of the grand 
jury, and nearly all the magistrates. Public meetings soon 
followed in most of tlie districts of the county, in opposition to the 
sentiments expressed in the Johnstown declaration. On a day 
appointed, the little church at Cherry Valley, was crowded with 
all ages and sexes. Thomas Spencer, an Indian interpreter, 
addressed the meeting in a strain of "rude, though impassioned 
eloquence." * Articles of association were adopted at this and at 
similar district meetings, approving the proceedings of the Philadel- 
phia congress, and declaring that the Johnstown proceeding was a 
measure which would assist to "entail slavery upon America." 
On the 8th of May, the Palatine committee, wrote a letter to the 
Albany committee, in which they say that they are busy in 
circulating petitions, and enlisting the citizens of Tryon county, on 
the side of the colonies, but they say: — 

" This county has for a series of years been ruled by one 
family, the different branches of which are still strenuous in 
persuading people not to come into congressional measures; and 
even have, last week, a't a numerous meeting of the Mohawk 
District, appeared with all their dependents armed, to oppose the 

* Mr. Campbell sajs: — "The noblest efforts of an Henry and an Otis, never 
wrought more sensibly upon the feelings of the congresses they addressed, than did the 
harangue of this unlettered patriot, upon that little assembly." 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 25& 

people , considering of their grievances: — their number being so 
large, and the people unarmed, struck terror into the most of them, 
and they dispersed. We are informed that Johnson Hall is forti- 
fying by placing swivel guns around the same, and that Col. 
Johnson has had part of his regiment of militia under arms, 
yesterday, no doubt with the design to prevent the friends of 
liberty from publishing their attachment to the cause, to the world. 
Besides which, we are told, that about an hundred Highlanders, 
(Roman Catholics,) are armed, and ready to march upon the like 
occasion. We are informed that Col. Johnson, has stopped two 
New Englanders, and searched them, being as we suppose, suspi- 
cious that they came to solicit aid from us or the Indians, whom 
we dread most, there being a current report through the county, 
that they are to be made use of in keeping us in awe. We 
recommend it strongly and seriously to you to take it in your 
consideration, whether any powder and ammunition, ought to be 
permitted to be sent up this way, unless it is done under the 
inspection of the committee, and consigned to the committee here, 
and for such particular shop-keepers, as we in our next shall 
acquaint you. We are determined to suffer none in our district, to 
sell any, but such as we approve of, and sign the association. 
When any thing particular comes to our knowledge relating to the 
Indians, (whom we shall watch), or anything interesting, we shall 
take the earliest opportunity in communicating the same to you. 
And as we are a young county, remote from the metropolis, we 
beg you will give as all the intelligence in your power. We shall 
not be able to send down any deputies to the Provincial Congress, 
as we cannot possibly obtain the sense of the county soon enough 
to make it worth our while to send any, but be assured we are not 
the less attached to American liberty. For we are determined, 
although few in number, to let the world see who are, and who 
are not such; and to wipe oft' the indelible disgrace brought upon 
us by the declaration signed by our grand jury, and some of our 
magistrates; who in general, are considered by a majority of our 
county, as enemies to their country. In a word, gentlemen, it is 
our fixed resolution to support, and carry into execution every 
thing recommended by the Continental Congress, and to be free 

OR DIE." 

At the next meeting of the Palatine Committee, in the same 
month, two intercepted letters were read. The first, was a letter 
from the Mohawk, to the Oneida Indians. Translated into English, 
it was as follows: — 

"Written at Guy Johnson's, May 1775. This is your letter, you great ones, or 
Sachems. Guy Johnson says he will be glad if you get this intelligence, you Oneidas, 
bow it goes with him now, and he is now more certain concerning the intention of the 
Boston people. Goy Johnson is in great fear of being taken prisoner by the Boston 



256 HISTORY OF THE 

people. We Mohawks are obliged to watch him constantly. Therefore we send you 
this iutelligence, that you shall know it, and Guy Johnson assures himself and depends 
upon your coming to his assistance, and that you will without fail be of that opinion. 
He believes not that you will assent to let him suffer. We therefore expect you in a 
couple of day's time. So much at present. We send but so far as to you Oneidas, 
but afterwards perhaps, to all the other nations. We conclude, and expect that you 
will have concern about our ruler, Guy Johnson, because we are all united." 

The letter was signed by Joseph Brant as Secretary to Guy 
Johnson, and by four other chiefs. The other letter was from 
Guy Johnson to the magistrates and others, of the upper districts 
of Tryon county: — 

"Guy Park, May 20, 1775. 
Gentlemen, — I have lately, repeated accounts, that a body of New Englanders, or 
others, were to come and seize, and carry away ray person, and attack our family, under 
color of malicious insinuations that I intended to set the Indians upon the people. 
Men of sense and character know that my office is of the highest importance to pro- 
mote peace among the Six Nations, and prevent their entering into any such disputes. 
This I effected last year, when they were much vexed about the attack on the Shawnees, 
and I last winter appointed them to meet me this month, to receive the answer of the 
Virginians. All men must allow that if the Indians find their council fire disturbed, 
and their superintendent insulted, they will take a dreadful revenge. It is therefore the 
duty of all the people to prevent this, and to satisfy any who may have been imposed 
upon, that their suspicions, and allegations, they have collected against me, are false, 
and inconsistent with my character and office. I recommend this to you as highly 
necossary at this time, as my regard for the interests of the country and self preservation, 
has obliged me to fortify my house, and keep men armed for my defence, till these idle 
and malicious reports are removed." 

Upon the reading of these letters, the Committee adopted a set 
of strong resolutions confirming their former positions, and severely 
condemning the conduct of Sir Guy, in keeping about him a body 
of armed Indians, fortifying his house, and "stopping and search- 
ing travellers upon the King's highway." It was resolved, — " That 
as we abhor a state of slavery, we do join and unite together, 
under all the ties of religion, honor, justice, and a love for our 
country, never to become slaves, and to defend our freedom with 
our lives and fortunes." 

Before the Committee adjourned, it addressed another letter to 
the Albany Committee, — in which they say, that they have ordered 
the inhabitants of the district to provide themselves with arms and 
ammunition, and be ready at a moment's warning; that Johnson has 
five hundred men to guard his house; that he has stopped all 
communication between the counties of Tryon and Albany; that 
there was not fifty pounds of powder in their district; that they 
propose, jointly, with the Committees of other districts, to force a 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 2^7 

communication with Albany; that Johnson had invited the upper 
Indian nations to go down to his neighborhood, but as many of the 
Indians were dissatisfied with him, they should endeavor to make a 
diversion in their favor; and that they wish the Albany Com- 
mittee to send them some one or two who would be able to make 
the Indians understand the true nature of the dispute with the 
mother country. They say: — "We are gentlemen, in a worse 
situation than any part of America is at present. We have an 
open enemy before our faces, and treacherous friends at our backs;" 
but they assure the Albany Committee that they are very unanimous 
in the Palatine and Canajoharie districts, and are "determined 
neither to submit to the acts of Parhament, or Col. Johnson's 
arbitrary conduct." In answer to a communication from Gut 
Johnson, the Albany Committee used conciliatory language; said 
they were disposed to believe in the sincerity of his professions; 
that they are sorry that reports prejudicial to his character had 
gone abroad; and trusted that he would "pursue the dictates of an 
honest heart, and study the interests, peace and welfare of his 
country." They also, addressed a communication to the com- 
mittees in Tryon county, advising as the prudent course, not to 
attempt to open a communication with Albany, as they had inten- 
ded. Before adjourning, in reference to a threat they had under- 
stood Johnson had made, of procuring the imprisonment of those 
who took a conspicuous part in the proceedings that were going 
on, they resolved to "stand by each other, and rescue from imprison- 
ment any who were confined in an illegal manner." Secresy, was 
enjoined upon all the members. It was resolved to have no social 
intercourse, or dealings, with those who had not joined the associa- 
tion. The owners of slaves were enjoined not to suffer them to go 
from home, except with a certificate that they were on their mas- 
ter's business. 

On the 25th of May, an Indian council was convened at Guy 
Park. Delegates were present from Albany and Tryon counties. 
The Indians, through Little Abraham, a Mohawk chief, assured 
them that they did not wish to have a quarrel with the inhabitants. 
That during Sir William Johnson's life time, and since, they 
had been peaceably disposed. The delegations, and Indians, 
parted with mutual assurances of continued friendship; though 
the Mohawks declared that they were under great obligations to 

17 



258 HISTORY OF THE 

Sir William Johnson, had a great respect for his memory, and 
they must guard and protect every member of his family. 

On the 22d of June, 1775, a meeting of the Committees of Tryon 
county was held; being joined for the first time, by a Committee 
from the Mohawk district, which district had hitherto kept aloof, 
through the influence of the Johnsons. This meeting addressed 
a letter to Guy Johnson, in which they assured him that the people 
of Tryon county, made common cause with their brethren of 
Massachusetts Bay; they recapitulated generally, the grievances 
complained of on the part of the colonies; that possessing as he did, 
very large estates in the county, they could not think that he 
' differed with them upon the subject of American freedom; and 
they complained that peaceable meetings of the Mohawk district, 
had been disturbed, and a man in their interests, had been inhu- 
manly treated, &c, 

Johnson in his answer, persevered in pacific assurances; said he 
had fortified his house, because he was apprehensive of an attack, 
and in doing so, he had only exercised the prerogative of all 
English subjects. While he professed loyalty to his king, he 
assured the Committee that he should continue to so discharge the 
duties of his office, as to best do his duty to his country, and 
preserve its peace; that his family had been the benefactors of the 
country, &c. He said the movements of the people were prema- 
ture, that they should wait and see what would be the final action 
of the home government upon the matters complained of; that 
they should have " nothing to apprehend from his endeavors," but 
that he should " be glad to promote their true interests." 

Notwithstanding such professions, it would seem that he had 
early been ambitious to seize upon the influence he had inherited 
from his father-in-law, mould the Six Nations to his will, and 
subserve the two-fold purpose of gratifying a personal ambition, 
and making an exhibition of his loyalty, to his family's patron, 
George the Third. Under the pretence that he could better 
control the Indians, and keep them peaceable, by withdrawing them 
from the irritating influences that surrounded them in the Mohawk 
Valley, he removed with his retinue to Fort Stanwix, and from 
thence farther west, where he was met by thirteen hundred war- 
riors in council. From his then location, under date of July 8th, 
he wrote to Mr. Livingston, the President of Congress, a letter 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 259 

which concludes thus: — "I should be much obliged by your prom- 
ises of discountenancing any attempts against myself, did they not 
appear to be made on conditions of compliance with continental or 
provincial Congresses, or even Committees, formed or to be formed, 
many of whose resolves may not consist with my conscience, duty 
or loyalty;" — still he assures Mr. Livingston that he shall always 
"manifest more humanity than to promote the destruction of 
innocent inhabitants of a colony, to which I have been always 
warmly attached." 

He retired to Montreal, where he took up his residence, and 
" continued to act during the war as an agent of the British gov- 
ernment, distributing to the Indians liberal rewards for their deeds 
of cruelty, and stimulating them to further exertions." * 

The Mohawks, almost the entire body of them, had accompanied 
Johnson and his family to the west, f In June, the Rev. Samuel 
KiRKLAND, then missionary to the Oneidas, held a conference with 
the Oneidas and Tuscaroras, to induce them to remain neutrals 
during the war. Knowing his influence with the Oneidas, the 
Johnsons had not been idle in attempts to prejudice them against 
him. They told him that Mr. K. "was a descendant of those New 
England, or Boston people, who had formerly murdered their king, 
and fled to this country for their lives;" that the New England 
ministers "were not true ministers of the gospel." All this did not 
succeed however, in depriving him of his influence, or the 
attachment of the Oneidas to him. Most of them remained neutrals 
during the war — a large portion of them offered to take up the 
hatchet in behalf of the colonies, but it was preferred to dispense 
with their services, except in a few instances. Some of them 
I'endered important services, as runners, in apprising the border 
settlers of approaching danger. 



JOSEPH BRANT — THAYENDANEGA. 



An elaborate history | having been written of this noted Indian 
chief, no farther biographical sketch of him will be attempted, than 
is incidental to local narrative. 

The. place of his birth, parentage, &c., have been differently 

* Spark's American Biog;raphy. 

t Guy Johnson was accompanied by Joseph Brant, and John and Walter Butler. 

X Life of Brant, by William L. Stone. 



2@0 HISTORY OF THE 

stated by historians. It was assumed by Dr. Strachan, of Toronto, 
in some sketches he wrote many years since, and published in the 
Christian Register, that Brant was born on the Ohio river, whither 
his parents had emigrated from the valley of the Mohawk, and 
where they are said to have sojourned for several years. This 
information was derived from the Rev. Dr. Stewart, formerly a 
missionary in the Mohawk Valley. Col. Stone concedes that he 
was born on the Ohio river, but assumes that it was during a 
hunting excursion from the Mohawk, in which his parents partici- 
pated; and that his father was a full blooded Mohawk of the Wolf 
tribe. The friend of the author, (Mr. L. C. Draper,) to whom 
reference is made in the preface to this work, assumes that he was 
a native Cherokee, upon some evidence he has discovered in his 
indefatigable researches. If this is so, we are to infer that his 
parents were adopted Cherokee captives. 

The home of his family was at the Canajoharie Castle. In July, 
1761, he was sent by Sir William Johnson, to the "Moor's 
Charity School," at Lebanon, Conn., established by the Rev. Dr. 
Wheelock, with several other Mohawk boys. He made good 
progress in education, and on his return from school, was employed 
by his patron in public business. His first miUtary exploits, had 
preceded his education; when quite young, he had been upon 
several expeditions with Sir William Johnson. 

Under the circumstances — the friendship and patronage, and 
the family alliance that has been already spoken of — it is easy to 
perceive how his position was determined in the border wars; and 
why he followed the fortunes of the Johnson family. Mr. 
(/AMPBBLL, himself a descendant of severe sufferers in that terrible 
crisis, and enjoying good opportunities to estimate the character of 
Brant, says in his Annals. — "Combining the natural sagacity of 
the Indian, with the skill and science of the civilized man, he was 
a formidable foe. He was a dreadful terror to the frontiers. His 
passions were strong. In his intercourse, he was affable and polite. 
and communicated freely, relative to his conduct. He often said 
that during the war he had killed but one man in cold blood, and 
that act he often regretted. He said he had taken a man prisoner, 
and was examining him; the prisoner hesitated, and he thought 
equivocated. Enraged at what he considered obstinacy, he struck 
him down. It turned out that the man's obstinacy arose from a 
natural hesitancy of speech." 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 201 

The statement that he had been guilty of but one assassination, 
does not correspond with well authenticated tradition; though he 
may, to have satisfied his own conscience, made a nice distinction 
in some instances, as to what constituted a taking of life in " cold 
blood." That the bad features of his character, and his atrocities, 
have been much magnified, there is no doubt, as have nearly all of 
the events in the border wars. It is difficult to reconcile the 
character of Joseph Brant, as given in many of our histories, 
with the accounts we have of him from living cotemporaries, who 
knew liim well. 

He was the companion of Judge Porter, in a journey he made 
from Albany to Canandaigua, in 1794. The chief was returning 
from a visit to the then seat of government, (Philadelphia,) to his 
residence at Brantford, C. W. The Judge speaks of him as an 
intelligent, gentlemanly, travelling companion. The journey was 
on horseback. It was the first time Brant had travelled the 
valley of the Mohawk, since the Revolution, and on leaving 
Albany, he was somewhat apprehensive of the treatment he would 
receive. Peace, however, and the obligations it imposed, saved 
him from any harm or insult, from those in whose memory the 
scenes with which he was associated, were painfully fresh and 
vivid. While he avoided being drawn into any conversation con- 
nected with the border wars, he pointed out such things upon the 
Mohawk as were associated in the reccollections of his boyhood. 

John Gould, of Cambria, Niagara county, was a resident at 
Brantford, as early as 1791, or '2; says he has often heard Brant 
relate the story of his visit to England; how he was feasted and 
toasted in London, &c. After his return, his house at Brantford 
was the resort of many of the British officers, and prominent 
citizens of Canada. He was hospitable, had good social qualities, 
and was much esteemed by the early residents of Brantford, and 
its vicinity. The patronage of the government had enabled him to 
live much in the style of an English gentleman. He retained the 
slaves he had brought from the Mohawk. Mr. Gould remembers 
well the death of his son Isaac, from a stab inflicted by his father. 
"When sober," says Mr. G. "Isaac was a good Indian — when in 
liquor, he was a devil. He committed many depredations. I once 
invited him to a raising. He excused himself on the ground, that 
if he went he should get a taste of liquor and commit some outrage. 
One day he became intoxicated, went to his fathers house and 



'262 HISTORY OF THE 

attacked him with a knife — they had a desperate fight, which 
ended in Isaac's death. No one at the time blamed the old man, 
but all considered it was an act of necessary self-defence. Isaac 
had before killed a saddler upon Grand River, upon some slight 
provocation." 

Judge Hopkins, of Lewiston, Niagara county, was a resident, 
near the Brants, in 1800 and 1801, and confirms generally, the 
statement of Mr. Gould. 

Others, who were early residents of Canada, and neighbors of 
the subject of this sketch, in the latter years of his life, have given 
the author many interesting reminiscences of him, derived from 
personal observation and conversation; but a few of which can be 
made available without transcending prescribed limits. 

In speaking of the attack and massacre at Minisink, he excused 
himself upon the ground that the Americans came out under 
pretence of holding a parley, and fired several shots, some of which 
were aimed at him.* Provoked at this, he gave orders for an 
attack in which no quarters were to be given. He assumed that 
he saved the life of Capt. Wood, had him taken to Niagara, as a 
prisoner, where he remained until peace. He acknowledged to an 
informant of the author, that he took the life of Lieut. Wisner, at 
Minisink, very much as the inhuman act is already detailed in 
history; but excused the act upon the ground, that he had either 
to leave him to become a prey to wild beasts in his wounded and 
helpless condition, be encumbered with him in a retreat through an 
enemy's country, or adopt the terrible alternative he did. He 
claimed to have saved many prisoners, upon other occasions, — and 
generally to have been governed by the incentives of humanity; 
though it is difficult to reconcile these professions, even with his 
own versions. At Oriskany he said: — "I captured a man who had 
hid behind a stump; his name was Waldo or Walbridge; he 
begged, and I ordered the Indians to save him. He conducted 
myself and party to his home, a mile distant; arriving there, we 
found that Indians had preceded us, and had bound for sacrifice, a 
'beautiful girl,' the sister of our prisoner. I ordered her release." 

Says another informant: — "I first-knew Joseph Brant in 1797. 
He resided at the Mohawk village. He was the patroon of the 
place — his authority nearly absolute, with both Indians and whites. 

* Not consistent with authentic history. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 263 

He was in high favor with Gov. Simcoe, and the Canadian authori- 
ties generally. The governor was often a partaker, with others, 
of his hospitalities. I have heard Capt. Brant say, he could not 
regret the death of his son Isaac; but much regretted that he had 
been obliged to take the life of a son." 

Few mooted points of history have been more often discussed, 
than the question whether Brant was present at the Wyoming 
massacre. The poet Campbell, in his widely read and admired 
poem, " Gertrude of Wyoming," in a passage purporting to be a 
part of the speech of an Oneida chief, pending the battle, or 
massacre, says: — 

" ' But this is not a time' ; — (he started up, 

And smote his breast with wo-denouncing hand) — 

' This is no time to fill the joyous cup. 

The mammoth comes — the foe — the monster, Brakt! 

With all his howling, desolating band; 

These eyes have seen their blade, and burning pine; 

Awake at once, and silence half your land. 

Red is the cup they drink; but not with wine; 

Awake and watch to-night, or see no morning shine. 

Scorning to wield the hatchet for his bribe, 

'Gainst Beant himself I went to battle forth: 

Accursed Brant! he left of all my tribe. 

Nor man, nor child, nor thing of living birth; 

No, not the dog that watched my household hearth. 

Escaped that night of blood upon our plains: 

All perished! I alone am left on earth! 

To whom nor relative, nor blood remains — 

No — not a kindred drop that runs in human veins." 

This was admired verse, but destined to be questioned fact. 
.ToHN Brant, a son of the old chief, visited London in 1822. 
While there, he caused to be exhibited to Mr. Campbell, docu- 
mentary evidence, showing that he had done great injustice to the 
memory of his father; and that he was not present at the massacre 
at Wyoming. Mr. Campbell immediately addressed the young 
chief a respectful letter, in which after justifying himself by citing 
numerous authorities in favor of the conclusion he had favored in 
his poem, frankly acknowledged that the evidence presented to him 
had induced him to change his opinion; to which he added an 
expression of regret that he had been led to favor the imputation. 

W. L." Stone, in his life of the Mohawk chief, assumes that he 
was not at Wyoming. The publication of his history was fol- 
lowed by a paper published in the Democratic Review, attrib- 



264 HISTORY OF THE 

uted to Caleb Gushing; in which it is assumed that Brant was 
at Wyoming; and the biographer is called upon to show where he 
was at the time, if he was not there 1 * Col. Stone replied to this, 
and pretty effectually justified his position. 

In a conversation that took place between Col. Butler and 
Joseph Brant, at Brantford, many years after the Revolution, 
(well remembered by one who related it to the author,) Brant 
was complaining that much was laid to his charge of which he was 
innocent. "They say," said he, "that I was the Indian leader at 
Wyoming; you, Colonel, kriow I was not there." To which, 
Butler replied: — "To be sure, I do, — and if you had been there, 
you could have done no better than I did; the Indians were 
uncontrollable." 

The author inclines to the opinion of Col. Stone, (though deem- 
ing him in the main, too partial to his semi-civilized hero;) the 
terrible instrument in the hands of his British prompters, in scenes 
of stealthy assault, captivity and death; the foremost and most 
formidable scourge of the border settlers of our state, in a crisis 
that found them exposed to all the evils of savage warfare — 
enhanced by the aid and assistance of a portion of their own race, 
who had not savage custom and usage to plead in extenuation of 
their atrocities and villanies. 

Joseph Brant died at his residence at Burlington Bay, on the 
24th of November, 1807, aged 64 years. Previous to his death, 
he had become a communicant of the Episcopal church, and in his 
life time had aided that church materially in its missionary labors 
among the Indians, by translating some portions of the scriptures, 
and the Book of Common Prayer, into the Mohawk language. 

Where the first stopping place of the Mohawks was, after 
leaving their home upon the Mohawk, with Guy Johnson and 
Brant, (if they had any intermediate abiding place,) before 
reaching Lewiston, the author has nowhere seen named. In an 
early period of the border wars. Brant's residence was at Lew- 
iston, — his dwelling a block house, standing near what is called 
"Brant's Spring," on the farm of Isaac Cook. His followers, 
forming a considerable Indian village, were located along the 



* A difficult task, the reader will conclude: — to go back beyond a half centur}-, and 
show where the leader of a band of Indians was, whose range was a then wilderness 
comprising half of our entire state, a part of Pennsylvan'a, and a part of Canada 
West; his location changing with the vicissitudes of a predatory warfare. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 265 

Ridge Road between the Academy and the road that leads up to 
the Tuscarora village. There were remains of the huts standing 
when white settlement commenced. It would seem by reference 
to the books of the land office, that for several farms there, the 
purchasers wore charged an extra price, in consequence of the 
improvements the Mohaw^ks had made during their residence there. 
There was a log church in v^rhich the Episcopal service was usually 
read upon Sundays, by some one attached to the British garrison 
at Niagara, and occasionally a British army chaplain, or a mission- 
ary w^ould be present. That church, in any history of its origin 
and progress, in Western New York may w^ell assume that beyond 
the garrison at Niagara, Lewiston, Brant's rude log church, was 
the spot where its services were first had. Upon a humble log 
church there could, of course, then, be no belfry or steeple. The 
bell that was brought from the Mohawk, was hung upon a cross- 
bar, resting in the crotch of a tree, and rang by a rope attached. 
The crotch was taken down by the Cook family, after they had 
purchased the land. In 1778, John Mountpleasant, then but 
eight years old, says his Tuscarora mother used to take him down 
to the church, where he remembers seeing his father, Capt. Mount- 
pleasant, then in command of the garrison at Niagara. He 
speaks of the crotch and the bell, as objects that attracted his 
especial attention. 



Our brief narrative of events in the border war, having been 
interrupted — to admit of some reminiscences of one who was so 
conspicuous in its memorable scenes — it will be resumed, but only 
with reference generally, to events connected with the western 
portion of our state. 

The Tryon county General Committee, after the departure of 
Guy Johnson, and his retinue, were active in perfecting its organ- 
ization, and enlisting the co-operation of the citizens of the county. 
Sir .John Johnson had remained behind, converted his house into a 
rendezvous and focus of loyalty, and was actively engaged in 
counteracting the movements of the Committee. The public autho- 
rities of the county — the Judges of the court, the Magistrates, were 
mostly with him and against the Committee. The shcrift' of the 
county, Alexander White, had early demonstrated his position 
and sentiments, by using his official authority to disperse the prim- 



266 HISTORY OF THE 

itive meeting in the Mohawk district, made himself especially 
obnoxious with the people. In a letter from the Committee to the 
Provincial Congress, they say: — "We must further hear that Gov. 
Tryon shall have again granted a commission to the great 
villain, Alexander White, for High Sheriff in our county, but 
we shall never suffer any exercise in our county, of such office by 
said White." In such an emergency, the Committee formally 
declared, that there was an end to the previously constituted autho- 
rities of the county, and constituted themselves the local govern- 
ment, exercising as a demand of necessity, in most matters, arbi- 
trary authority. It was in fact, thus early, revolution, so far as 
our county of Tryon was concerned. 

In September, 1775, the Committee say in a letter to Congress, 
" there is a great many proved enemies to our association and reg- 
ulations thereof, being Highlanders, amounting to 200 men, accor- 
ding to intelligence. We are daily scandalized by them, provoked 
and threatened, and we must surely expect a havoc of them upon 
our families if we should be required and called elsewhere upon 
our country's cause." It was ascertained that Johnson kept up a 
continual correspondence with Guy Johnson at Montreal, after 
his retreat. In October, the Committee wrote to Sir John, wish- 
ing to know if he would " allow the inhabitants of Johnstown and 
Kingsborough, to form themselves into companies according to the 
regulations of our Continental Congress;" whether he would lend 
his personal assistance to such a measure; and whether he preten- 
ded a " prerogative to our county court house and goal, and would 
hinder or interrupt the Committee making use of the same ]" He 
replied that he should not hinder his tenants from doing as they 
pleased, but that they were not disposed to engage in the cause 
of Congress, &c.; as to himself, he said, "sooner than lift his hand 
against his King, or sign any association, he would suffer his head 
to be cut off;" as to the court house and jail, they should be used 
only for the purposes for which they were built, until he was paid 
seven hundred pounds, advanced for their erection; and closed by 
charging that "two of the Canajoharie and German Flatts people 
had been forced to sign the association." 

The Provincial Congress, addressed a letter to the committee, 
advising forbearance and moderation, and suggesting that they had 
in some particulars asked too much of Sir John, yet the Congress 
denied that he had any right to control the court-house, as that was 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 267 

conveyed by Sir William, for the use of the county. But the 
Congress advised the Committee, that as it might lead to serious 
consequences, they had better not confine persons in the jail 
"inimical to our country," but procure some other convenient 
place, and also advised against in any way, molesting' Sir John, as 
long as he was inactive. 

In the following winter. Sir John made preparations to fortify 
Johnson's Hall, and the rumor gained ground, that when completed, 
he would garrison it with three hundred Indians, besides his own 
men. In January, Gen. Schuyler, Gen. Ten Broek, and Col. 
Varick, came into Tryon county with a small party of soldiers, 
where they were joined by the Tryon county militia, ordered out 
by Gen. Herkimer. The rendezvous was but a few miles from 
Johnson's Hall. From the camp, a correspondence was carried on 
for several days with Sir John Johnson. It resulted in his surren- 
dering himself a prisoner, and disarming his tenants. This pro- 
duced quiet for the winter, but in May, Sir John broke a parole he 
had entered into, and accompanied by a large number of his 
tenants, went to Montreal. There, or at some point in Canada, he 
organized a military corps of refugees, known throughout the war, 
as "Johnson's Greens." 

The first delegates to the Provincial Congress, from Tryon 
county, were John Marlatt and John Moore. In May, 1776, 
the Tryon county committee, instructed their delegates in the 
Provincial Congress, to vote for the entire independence of the 
Colonies; and the Declaration of Independence, of the 4th of July 
following, was hailed by the people of Tryon county with joy. 

For nearly a year after this, there were but little of war 
movements, in the Mohawk valley. In June, 1777, Brant 
appeared at Unadilla with seventy or eighty Indians, where he 
sought an interview with some militia officers, and the Rev. Mr. 
Johnstone, He told them his party were in want of provisions, 
and that if they could not get them peaceably, they must by force. 
He admitted he had joined his fortunes and that of his tribe, to the 
King, who "was very strong," that he and his people were 
" natural warriors, and could not bear to be threatened by Gen. 
Schuyler," He demanded that the Mohawk people he had left 
behind, should be made free, to pass out of the country when they 
pleased. This advent was attended only by levying some supplies 
from the inhabitants. 



'268 HISTORY OF THE 

In July following, Gen. Herkimer went to Unadilla with a corps 
of three hundred and eighty militia; where Brant again appeared 
with one hundred and eighty warriors. He was as insolent as 
before. He repeated a declaration of his intention to espouse the 
cause of the King; said the King would "humble the Boston 
people that Gen. Herkimer had joined;" and intimated that those 
he served, were much better able to make Indians presents, than 
were Gen. H. and his associates. Col. Cox, who was present, 
said to Brant if he had determined to espouse the cause of the 
King, the matter was ended. At some intimation from Brant, 
his warriors raised a shout, and repaired to their camp about a 
mile distant, when seizing their arms, they fired several guns and 
raised the Indian war whoop. Returning to the conference ground, 
Gen. Herkimer assured Brant that he had not come to fight; at 
which Brant motioned to his warriors to keep their places; and 
addressing Gen. Herkimer, in a threatening attitude, told him if 
his purpose was war, he was ready for him. He then proposed 
that Mr, Stewart the missionary among the Mohawks, (who was 
supposed to lean to the English side,) and the wife of Col. Butler, 
should be permitted to pass from the upper to the lower Mohawk 
castle. Gen, Herkimer offered to comply upon the condition that 
some tories and deserters were given up to him; to which condi- 
tion Brant would not yield, but closed the conference with a 
threat that he would go to Oswego and hold a treaty with Col, 
Butler; or rather the conference was ended by a violent storm 
which obliged both parties to retreat for shelter. 

This was the last conference that was held with any of the Six 
Nations except the Oneidas, to prevent them from engaging in the 
war. It is supposed that Gen. Herkimer's forbearance, his 
neglect to urge matters to extremes when provoked by Brant, 
was dictated by the hope that amicable arrangements would 
eventually be made. 

On the 5th of July, 1777, Gen, Burgoyne had obtained posses- 
sion of Ticonderoga. The presence of so large a British armed 
force there, with the feeble means as it seemed of resisting their 
further conquests, spread alarm throughout the country, and 
especially in Try on county. On the 15th of July, an Oneida 
sachem, returned from Canada and brought news that Col. John 
Johnson with his family, and Col. Claus and his family, were at 
Oswego, with "700 Indians, 400 regulars, and 600 tories," and 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 269 

that preparations were making for an attack on Fort Schuyler; * 
that Col. Butler had arrived at Oswego from Niagara, with an 
additional force, &c. 

In April preceding this. Col. Gansevoort had garrisoned this 
frontier post with the 3d regiment N. Y. line of state troops, and 
had been busily engaged in strengthening it. Alarm increased in 
consequence of the news from the west. Secret information of 
movements had been industriously circulated among the disaffected 
inhabitants of Tryon county. Insinuations of an alarming nature 
were thrown out, and not without effect. The Indians, it was 
said, would ravage the whole intervening country. ''Many," says 
Mr. Campbell, "who had not acted before decidedly, now espoused 
the cause of the mother country, and in small parties, stole away 
and went to the enemy." On the 17th of July, Gen. Herkimer 
issued a proclamation, that two thousand troops "christians and 
savages," had collected at Oswego, with intention to invade the 
frontiers. He announced his intention, in case the enemy 
approached, to order into service, every male person, being in 
health, between the ages of sixteen and sixty; — "and those above 
sixty, or unwell and incapable to march, shall assemble also, armed, 
at the respective places, where women and children will be gathered 
together, in order for defence against the enemy, if attacked, as 
much as lies in their power." He also ordered that the disaffected 
should be arrested, and kept under guard; appealed in urgent 
language upon all to discharge their duty, in the approaching 
crisis; and closed his stirring proclamation as follows: — "Not 
doubting that the Almighty Power, upon our humble prayers, and 
sincere trust in him, will then graciously succor our arms in battle, 
for our just cause, and victory cannot fail on our side." 

On the 2d of August, Gen. St. Leger, having advanced from 
Oswego, with an army of seventeen hundred men, (including 
Brant and his Indian forces,) arrived before Fort Schuyler, where 

*"This fort occupied a part of the site of Rome, in the present county of Oneida, 
situated at the head of navigation of the Mohawk, and at the carrying place between 
that river and Wood Creek, from whence the boats passed to Oswego ; it was a post of 
great importance to the western part of New York. The French, with their usual 
sagacity, in endeavoring to monopolize the Indian trade, had erected a fortification at 
this place. At the commencement of the war, it seems to have gone to decay ; a few 
families had settled there, forming the extreme outposts of civilization, save the forts of 
Oswego and Niagara. It was called Fort Schuyler, in honor of Gen. Schuyler. It 
has been confounded by some with Fort Schuyler, which was built in the French wars, 
near where Utica now stands, and named in honor of Col. Schuyler, the uncle of Gren. 
Schuyler." — Campbell's Annals. 



270 ^ HISTORY OF THE 

he soon found there was no disposition to surrender. He soon 
after published a proclamation, high toned and insolent; he recapit- 
ulated the offences of the citizens of the Mohawk Valley against 
his sovereign, the King, and announced that he had come at the 
head of a competent force to punish the aggressors, and afford 
relief to those who were not engaged in "rebellion." He declared 
his intention first to adopt conciliatory measures, and if those 
failed, he deemed himself justified in "executing the vengeance of 
the state against the willful outcasts." " The messengers of justice 
and wrath," said the confident leader of the royalist force, "await 
them in the field, and devastation and famine and every concomitant 
horror that a reluctant but indispensable prosecution of military 
duty, must occasion, will bar the way to their return." 

Gen. Herkimer was advancing to join his force — about seven 
hundred — with that of Col. Gansevoort, in the fort. Apprised 
of this, St. Leger detached Brant and Butler with a body of 
Indians and Tories to intercept him. They resolved upon a sur- 
prise, and for this purpose chose a spot well suited to the purpose. 
Gen. Herkimer advancing with his force without any suspicion of 
danger; the joint forces of Butler and Brant, favored in their 
ambuscade by the thick foliage of the forest, arose and poured a 
destructive fire upon them. The advance guard was entirely 
destroyed; those who survived the first onslaught, became victims 
of the tomahawk. The rear regiment fled in confusion, and were 
pursued by the Indians. The forward division, facing out in every 
direction, sought shelter behind the trees, and returned an effectual 
fire. "The fighting had continued for some time, when Major 
Watson, a brother-in-law of Sir John Johnson, brought up a 
detachment of Johnson's Greens. The blood of the Germans 
boiled with indignation at the sight of these men. Many of the 
'Greens' were personally known to them. They had fled their 
country, and were now returned in arms to subdue it. Their 
presence under any circumstances, would have kindled up the 
resentment of those militia; but coming as they now did, in aid of 
a retreating foe, called into exercise the most bitter feelings of 
hostility. They fired upon them as they advanced, and then rush- 
ing from behind their covers, attacked them with their bayonets, 
and those who had none, with the but ends of their muskets. This 
contest was maintained, hand to hand, for nearly half an hour. 
The Greens made a good resistance, but were obliged to give way 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 271 

under the fury of their assailants." * Major Watson was taken 
prisoner, but left upon the field. 

Col. WiLLETT, with two hundred and seven men, made a sally 
from the fort, and attacked the enemy in camp, to make a diversion 
in favor of Gen. Herkimer, and after an engagement of two hours 
compelled a retreat. After he had secured a part of the spoils the 
enemy had left, and destroyed the remainder, he was upon his 
return back to the fort, attacked by two hundred regulars from 
St. Leger's army, which, aided by a fire of cannon from the fort 
he soon compelled to retreat. He returned into the fort without 
the loss of a single man. This successful sally, the hearing that 
their camp was taken, and a shower of rain, induced the detach- 
ment that was in conflict with Gen. Herkimer, to withdraw, and 
thus ended the events of the day. The loss of the Provincials 
was about 200 killed, and as many wounded. 

Gen. Herkimer was wounded; one of his legs fractured by a 
musket ball. Refusing to leave the field, he had himself placed in 
a position a little distance from the theatre of action, when facing 
the enemy, he deliberately Ut and smoked his pipe. Surrounded 
by a few men he continued to issue his orders with firmness. A 
few days after the battle, his leg was amputated; mortification 
ensued and caused his death. Thus were the patriotic men of the 
valley of the Mohawk, deprived of the services of their brave 
leader, in a crisis when the services of such as him would seem to 
have been indispensable. 

Of the other officers of the Tryon county militia, Col. Cox, 
Majors Ersinlord, Klepsattle, and Van Slyck were killed, as was 
also Thomas Spencer, whose eloquence had stirred up the people 
of Cherry Valley, in a primitive period of the war. Major Frey, 
and Col. Bellinger were taken prisoners. The British Indian allies 
had one hundred killed; the Senecas alone, over thirty. The loss 
in killed, of the regulars and tories was computed at one hundred. 

St. Leger, though eflfectually defeated, resolved not to regard 
the events of the day in that light; but to use them even to aid 

*Campbell's Annals?. 

Note. — In an address before the New York Historical Society, Governeur Morris 
said: — "Let me recall gentlemen to your reccollection, the bloody spot on which 
Herkimer fell. There was found the Indian and the white man born on the banks of 
the Mohawk, their left hand clenched in each other's hair, the right grasping in a grasp 
of death, the knife plunged in each other's bosom; thus they lay frowning." 



HISTORY OF THE 

him in obtaining a surrender of tiie fort. He compelled Col. 
Bellinger and Major Frey, who were in his camp as prisoners, to 
address a letter to Col. Gansevoort, exaggerating the disasters of 
the day, and strongly urging a surrender; telling him how strong 
were his beseigers; that no succor could reach him; and assuming 
that BuRGOYNE was already before Albany. After repeated 
demands of a surrender, a correspondence, and some verbal 
messages, the finale of which was a short answer from Col. 
Gansevoort, in which he declared his fixed determination of 
holding out and resisting the seige, St. Leger threw up some 
redoubts, and brought his artillery to -bear upon the fort, but with 
little effect. The siege continued until the 22d of August, when 
the besiegers had advanced within one hundred and fifty yards of 
the fort. Gen. Schuyler on hearing of the attack upon Gen. 
Herkimer and its results, despatched Gens. Learned and Arnold, 
(Benedict,) with a brigade of men to its relief; at the same time 
writing a letter to Col. Gansevoort exhorting him to hold out, 
and encouraging him with flattering accounts of the prospects of 
staying the march of Burgoyne. On the 22d of August, Gen. 
Arnold, in advance of Learned, arrived with his force at the 
German Flatts. From there, he also addressed Col. Gansevoort, 
telling him he should soon be with him, to be under no apprehen- 
sions, that he " knew the strength of the enemy and how to deal 
with them." He included in his letter the announcement that Stark 
had gained a signal victory at Bennington; that Howe with the 
shattered remnant of his army were on ship-board; that " Bur- 
goyne was retreating to Ty." 

In the camp of Gen. Arnold, was a refugee — Han Yost 
Schuyler — he gave him his liberty on condition that he would 
proceed to the camp of St. Leger, announce his approach, and 
give an exaggerated account of the advancing force under his com- 
mand; retaining the brother of the refugee as an hostage to secure 
a faithful discharge of the duties he had engaged to perform. 
The Indians in St. Leger's camp were already dissatisfied; they 
. had suffered severely, and despaired of being remunerated with 
plunder. This was greatly enhanced by the arrival of Han Yost, 
who told them that Gen. Arnold's force was "as numerous as 
the leaves on the forest trees." The Indians refused to remain 
any longer. Thus crippled, on the 22d, of August, St. Leger. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 273 

retired in disorder and confusion, leaving tiie greater portion of 
his baggage behind. He went by the way of Oswego to Montreal, 
and from thence, through lake Champlain to join Gen. Burgoyne. 

Thus ended the siege of Fort Schuyler. 

Having thus opened the campaign upon the Mohawk — sketched 
briefly the leading events up to the first principal conflict of arms, 
and given its main features and results — the author is admonished 
of the necessity of disposing of the Border War, with but brief 
chronological sketches of what followed, to its termination, except 
in reference to two prominent events. The whole subject forms 
an interesting and instructive branch of the local history of a large 
portion of our State; and he indulges the hope that he has been 
enabled to introduce enough of it in his work — and in a manner 
— to invite the younger portion of his readers especially, to sources 
of greater detail, and farther extended enquiry and research. — In 
the entire history of our revolutionary struggle, there are few 
pages we can read, which in a greater degree serves to remind 
us of the sufferings and sacrifices that purchased the blessings we 
so eminently enjoy — than those upon which are inscribed a faith- 
ful narrative of the Border War of New York and Pennsylvania. 

After the siege of Fort Schuyler, the Indians still hung like a 
" scythe of death," on the frontiers of New York. In the remote 
and less thickly inhabited parts, single individuals and whole fami- 
lies disappeared — no one could tell by what means, or how. Rel- 
ative, friend, or traveler, came to the place which he knew was 
once the residence of those he sought, but the charred fragments 
of their dwellings, were all he found. 

Brant opened the Indian campaign of 1788 by an attack upon 
the town of Springfield, near the head of Otsego lake. He 
imprisoned all who did not fly, burnt every building but one, into 
which he gathered all the women and children, and left them 
unhurt. 

On the first of July, a skirmish occurred between a party of 
militia, and a large body of Indians, at Cobbleskill. The militia 
were compelled to retreat. Several dwellings were burned, after 
being plundered; houses and cattle were all killed or taken oK. 
The whole of the Schoharie region was constantly visited by 
predatory bands of Indians and Tories, during the whole war. 



18 



274 HISTORY OF THE 



MASSACRE OF WYOMING. 



There are few events connected with Indian border warfare that 
have called forth more sympathy and condemnation than the mas- 
sacre of Wyoming. The settlers in this peaceful retreat were 
removed from the theatre of war. Its secluded situation seemed 
to hide it from the observation of both parties. Most of the set- 
tlers were in favor of the Colonies, and a considerable number 
belonged to the revolutionary army. Though there was a kind of 
understanding that the troops enlisted there, should not be removed 
from the valley, but kept there for its security and defence; still 
such was the emergency of the country that they had been called 
away, and about three hundred more enlisted. Most of those who 
remained were either too young or too old to be very serviceable 
as soldiers. Such was the defenceless state of Wyoming, when its 
inhabitants discovered seme indications that war was to be brought 
to their doors. Their distance from other settlements destroyed 
all hope of obtaining help from abroad, and the suddenness with 
which the attack probably would be made, rendered assistance 
from the regular army very doubtful. 

In 1778, a band of Tories and Indians, under the command of 
Col. John Butler, marched into this quiet valley, and made it the 
scene of desolation and suffering. The expedition "moved from 
Niagara, across the Genesee country, down the Chemung, to Tioga 
Point, whence they embarked upon the Susquehannah, and landed 
about twenty miles above Wyoming." Col. Zebulon Butler, 
who had been in the French war, and was now an officer in the 
Revolutionary army, happened to be home on a visit at the time of 
tlie invasion. At the urgent solicitation of the people, he assumed 
command of the militia. An attempt was made to attack the enemy 
by surprise, but the scout was accidentally discovered by an Indian, 
who fired at him, and immediately gave the alarm. When the 
Americans came up they found the enemy ready to receive them. 
A bloody battle ensued, in which one party fought with the despe- 
ration of men knowing their fate if conquered, and the other with 
the savage ferocity of revenge. The Tories and Indians gave no 
quarter, but pursued the flying party, killing all they could and 
afterwards murdering all they took. The fugitive army first 
sought shelter in what was called "Fort Forty." From this, those 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 275 

who still survived, fled to Fort Wyoming, which was shortly sur- 
rounded by Indians and Tories. This fort was filled with women 
and children; it was in no condition to be defended, or to withstand 
a siege. A capitulation took place, in which it was stipulated that 
the inhabitants might return to their farms but were not to take up 
arms durinsj the war. The Tories were allowed to return to their 
lands. The English commanding officer pledged his influence to 
have the Indians respect private property. This promise was 
totally disregarded. The Indians prowled through the valley, plun- 
dering and burning every house that was not occupied by a Tory 
— carrying misery and wretchedness into the bosom of many a 
happy home, and spreading ruin and suffering through the whole 
valley. 

Early in the month of September, Brant desolated the German 
Flatts. Fortunately, the inhabitants had warning in time to enable 
them to make their escape. It was evening when Brant arrived, 
it being rainy and dark, and supposing his presence in the neigh- 
borhood not known, he waited until morning, when his party almost 
simultaneously fired all the dwellings. Disappointed at not finding 
the inhabitants, he destroyed every thing they had left behind, 
without attacking the fort in which the people were collected. 

The flourishing settlements in Cherry Valley were next doomed 
to suffer the horrors of an Indian invasion. Lafayette, observing 
its exposed condition, early in the spring of 1778, ordered a 
fortification to be built, in which the inhabitants deposited their 
property, and went for protection in seasons of danger. In the 
autumn of that year, supposing all danger passed, and relying on 
the vigilance of the commanding officer of the fort, to warn them 
of the approach of the enemy, they returned to their dwellings. 
Col. Alden received timely notice that the enemy were on their 
way, and where was their destination. Refusing to believe the 
reports of the intended attack, promising to take every necessary 
measure to prevent surprise — he made others feel the same 
security, and thus all was left completely exposed. Even after 
the attack had been begun, when told by a wounded settler, who 
had barely escaped with life, he still doubted. The enemy had 
ample time to make complete their plans for striking a terrible 
blow. Particular houses where officers of the garrison were 
staying, were ascertained by the Indians. With hardly a moment's 
notice, when least expected, the quiet villagers were aroused to a 



276 HISTORY OF THE 

sense of their fearful situation by the sound of death-shots, the 
slashes of the tomahawk, and the shrieks of devoted victims. 
Fire and hatchet were busily engaged in accomplishing their work 
of terror — slaughter and pillage marked the course of civilized and 
savage foe. The fort was surrounded and assaulted, but being met 
with spirit and firmness, the Indians soon shrunk from the steady 
fire that was poured upon them, run to the houses, to plunder, 
destroy, and kill without mercy or check. The same evening 
thirty or forty prisoners were marched into the wilderness. When 
they arrived at the place of encampment, large fires, in a circular 
form were kindled, and the captives, without shelter from the 
inclement weather, or any regard to age, health or sex, were all 
put indiscriminately in the centre. Their dreadful situation was 
rendered still more awful, by the startling yells and savage revelry 
kept up all night by the Indians while dividing the spoils. In the 
morning, the prisoners with their captors, set out on their journey; 
but before they had gone far, the women and children were 
voluntarily released, with the exception of Mrs. Campbell and 
her four children, and Mrs. Moore and her children. The 
invaders then went back to Niagara from whence originated most 
of these expeditions of pillage and bloodshed. 

J^OTE. — Mrs. Campbell and her children were carried to Kanadasaega, (Geneva,) 
then the chief town of the Seneeas. She and her children were adopted into an Indian 
family, to supply the place of lost relations. Nobly resolving to adapt herself to her 
new condition, she exerted herself in getting in favor with her captors, and making 
herself useful to them. She made garments for tbe squaws, and in various ways, 
acquired an influence which greatly meliorated her condition. One day an Indian 
came to her, and observing that she wore caps, said he would give her one ; upon 
presenting it he told her he had obtained it "at Cherry Valley." She recognized it as 
the cap of Miss Jane Wells, who had been most barbarously massacred at Cherry 
Valley. It had a cut in the crown made by a tomahawk, and was spotted with blood 1 
" She could not but drop a tear to her memoiy, for she had known her from her 
infancy, a pattern of virtue and loveliness." The Indian acknowledged himself the 
murderer. Mrs. Campbell preserved the relic, and afterwards presented it to the friends 
of the deceased. When Col. Butler went to Canada, he had left his wife and children, 
who were retained as hostages. A proposition was made to exchange them for Mrs. 
Campbell and her children. Col. Campbell, the husband and father, receiving the 
proposition in writing, laid it before Gov. Clinton and Gen. Schuyler, and it was 
acceded to. Early in the spring Col. Butler went to Kanadasaega and proposed the 
release of Mrs. Campbell; after a council of several days, with much reluctance, on the 
part of the Indians, he succeeded in his mission. She was taken to Niagara in June, 
1779, but her children were retained at Kanadasaega. About this time news was 
received at Niagara, of the march of Gen. Sullivan ; anticipating his arrival there, the 
garrison was recruited and strengthened. Col. Butler did not succeed in getting Mrs. 
Campbell's children, until the Seneeas, fleeing before Gen. Sullivan, sought refuge 
at Niagara, bringing them along in their flight. Mrs. Campbell remained at Niagara 
a year from the period of her first arrival there ; in June, 1780, she and her children 
were taken down to Montreal, where she found Mrs. Butler and her children, and her 
own son, a small bov, with them. After a delay of several months, the family were 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 277 



GEN. SULLIVAN'S EXPEDITION. 



The desolating and terrible Indian incursions with which the fron- 
tiers of New York and Pennsylvania had been visited in 1777 and 
1778, induced Congress to authorize General Washington to send 
an expedition into the country of the Six Nations, lay waste their 
villages, destroy their haunts, and make them sutTer some of the 
evils they had inflicted on others. The ultimate design of the 
expedition was the capture of Fort Niagara, the head quarters of 
the British and their Indian allies. 

The distance of the Senecas, upon the banks of the Seneca lake, 
and in the valley of the Genesee, from the immediate vicinity of 
hostile operations, had screened them from assault and retributive 
justice; while they could sally out whenever a runner from Butler, 
Brant, or the Johnsons, told them there was work of blood in hand; 
or when an ambitious chief among them took the war path upon his 
own account, to scourge with the double motive of revenge and 
plunder; — finding a safe retreat when their sanguinary missions 
were executed. 

The Six Nations had at this period, made considerable advances 
in some of the arts of civilized life. They had begun to depend 
less upon the chase for subsistence, than upon the cultivation of the 
soil. They had more permanent places of residence, and were less 
wandering in their habits, than most of their race upon this 
continent. They had numerous villages, cultivated fields, orchards, 
and rude gardens. They were enjoying many of the comforts and 
conveniences of civilization. 

Gen. Sullivan was appointed commander of the expedition. 
After some delay and embarrassment he assembled his division at 
Wyoming, marched to Tioga, and formed a junction with the 
eastern division, under the command of Gen. James Clinton. On 
the 22d of August, 1779, the two divisions united and made an 
effective force of five thousand men. Gen. Sullivan marched up 



sent to Albany, and ultimately, reached their home at Cherry Valley. When Gen. 
Washington traversed the valley of the Mohawk, in the summer of 1784, accompanied 
by Gov. Clinton and others, they were the guests of Col. Campbell in the rude log 
cabin he had erected after the war. Gov. Clinton observed to Mrs. Campbell, in 
reference to her boys : — " They will make fine soldiers in time." " 1 hope my country 
will never need their services," was the response of one who had seen enough of war 
and its consequences. "I hope so too madam," said Gen. Washington, for "I have 
seen enough of war." 



•278 HISTORY OF THE 

tiie Tioga and Chemung, taking even- precaution to guard against 
surprise and ambuscades. 

The estimate made by Gen. Sullivan in his report of the 
strengtli of t]ie Indians and Tories, at lifteen hundred, materially 
differs from tlie official rcport of Col. John Butler, who assumes 
that he had but six hundred British and Indians. Tlie Indians were 
under the command of Joseph Brant, and the Rangers under Col. 
John Butler, who held tlie cliief command.* The British and 
Indians had taken position and thrown up some rude fortifications 
about a mile below Xewtown. now Elmira. Col. Butler states in 
his official account of the battle, that the Senecas, and the few 
Delawares he had with him. had selected this spot and obstinately 
resolved to make a stand there, in spite of the opposition of himself 
and Brant. 

After destroying on his way all the Indian towns and planted 
tields that could be reached, on the '.19th of August, Gen. Sullivan 
prepared to attack the British and Indians in tlieir own position. 
In the battle that followed, a portion of the Indians maintained 
their ground firmly and bravely, fought as long as there was any 
hope of victory. Brant and another chief named Kiangarachta. 
particularly distinguished themselves, flying from point to point, 
animating and sustaining their warriors, by encouraging words, and 
daring deeds. Col. Butler bitterly complains of tlie conduct of 
some of his Indian allies in the early part of the engagement, who 
became frightened and panic struck by tlie explosion of some shells 
thrown beyond them, which they supposed came from an opposite 
direction, and led them to think that they were about to be 
surrounded, and all means of escape cut ofl*. The battle having 
continued near two hours, the enemy became fearlul of being 
completely hemmed in, precipitately abandoned his works and fled. 
Gen. Sullivan pursued him for nearly two miles, destroying ever}- 
tiling that could possibly be of any service to the Indians. Col. 
Butler acknowledged the loss of only five rangers, killed or taken; 
five Indians killed, and nine wounded. It is evident that he under- 
estimated his loss, for Gen. Sullivan found eleven dead on the 
field, and it is a well known Indian custom, to carry off as many 
of their dead as possible. Beside the eleven, fourteen were found 

* The statement made by Col. Stone, in his life of Brant, that the Johnson's were 
present, participatincr in the movements against Gen. Sullivan, is contradicted by the 
official report oi' Col. John Butler. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 379 

partially buried under the leaves. So effectual was the dispersion 
of the Indians as to render it impossible that Col. Butler should be 
able to ascertain his precise loss. The loss of the Americans was 
only five or six killed, and forty or fifty wounded — a very small 
loss considering the force they had to contend with, and the fierce- 
ness with which the battle was fought. 

Gen. Sullivan promptly followed up his advantage. The 
Indians seemed to be disheartened from a conviction that they 
could not make a successful stand against Gen. Sullivan, arrest 
his onward march, and the consequent ruin and devastation which 
they knew would inevitably attend it. 

They made no more serious and united opposition to the inva- 
ders. When they heard that Gen. Sullivan was approaching to 
their villages on the Genesee, they did indeed think of making 
another attempt. They selected a position between the head of 
Connesus lake and Honeoye outlet. They intended to await the 
approach of Sullivan in ambuscade. They, however, retreated 
when Sullivan came up, and fled before him. He continued his 
march, leaving burning villages and devastated fields, the witnesses 
of his presence. While Gen. Sullivan was constructing a bridge 
over a creek which led to Little Beard's town, Lieut. Boyd was 
sent out to observe the situation of the village. After a long, 
fatiguing march, continued far into the night, the party came 
to a village that appeared to have been lately deserted, as fires 
were yet burning in the huts. They passed the remainder of the 
night there, sending two of their number back to the main army 
to report.* Boyd having been discovered in the morning, resolved 
to reach the main army as soon as possible. He met with no 
difficulty until he came within a mile and a half of Gen. Sulli- 
van's camp, when they encountered a party of observation 
belonging to the enemy. Lieut. Boyd's brave but devoted little 
band were soon surrounded, and their only chance of escape was 
to cut their way through the ranks of their foe. Twelve of 
Boyd's men were soon shot down, and himself and Parker taken 
prisoners, the other seven making their escape. Boyd immediately 
asked for an interview with Buant, which was granted. W^hile in 
the presence of Brant, he, by signs, gave him to understand, that 
enemies though they might be on the battle field, yet there was one 

* Mary Jemison's Narrative. 



280 HISTORY OF THE 

relation in which they were sacredly bound to regard each other 
as "brothers." Brant recognized the appeal, and promised to 
protect him from injury. Boyd, placing the utmost confidence in 
the assurance of Brant, refused to answer any questions that Col. 
Butler asked, relative to the condition, strength, and designs of 
Gen. Sullivan's army, although threatened with being delivered 
over to the Indians, if he refused to give the desired information- 
Confident of Brant's protection, he still declined. Butler, 
meaning all that he threatened, gave Boyd and Parker up to the 
Indians. After inflicting on Boyd the most cruel tortures — 
throwing hatchets at his head, tearing oft' his nails, cutting oflT his 
tongue, ears and nose, putting out one of his eyes, taking out an 
end of his intestines, tying it to a small tree and then driving him 
around as long as they could, they finally ended his sufferings by 
cutting off* his head. Parker was also killed, but they cut off" his 
head, without any torture. 

Gen. Sullivan now employed some time in completing the work 
of desolation and destruction up and down the river, whereever 
were found villages, wigwams, fields, orchards, gardens, corn, 
cattle, or anything that is necessary to support fife — all were 
swept away. The capture of Niagara, the general place of 
rendezvous of the Indians, whence they sallied on those bloody 
excursions which made them a terror to all the frontier settlements, 
was not effected. Gen. Sullivan returned with his army, and 
went into winter quarters, in New Jersey, having prepai'ed the 
way for the famine and want which the Indians soon felt. The 
destruction of so many of their villages, and the total loss of their 
planted fields, just as they were ripening for the harvest, and as the 
previous year's supply was exhausted, caused hundreds of Indians, 
with their wives and children, to flock to Fort Niagara for the 
means of subsistence the ensuing winter — the memorable winter 
of 1779 and 1780. The British Canadian Governor, Sir John 
Johnson, was obliged to make great exertions to furnish sufficient 

Note. — In 1841, a public tribute of respect was paid to the memory of Boyd, by 
citizens of the Genesee Valley. A larisfe concourse assembled at the village of Cuyler. 
The venerable revolutionary patriot, Maj. Moses Van Campen, with other revolutionary 
soldiers were present. The burial place of Boyd having been identified, his remains 
were deposited in an urn, and suitable exercises were had in a grove near by; including 

a pertinent and timely historical and biographical discourse, by Treat, Esq. 

The next day the remains, attended by a large militan,- and civil escort, were taken to 
Mount Hope cemetery, where their interment was attended by an address from Gov. 
Seward, and suitable military and religious exercise?. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 281 

supplies for them. The following paragraph from a manuscript 
letter of the Delaware chief, Killbuck, to Col. Daniel Broad- 
head, at Pittsburgh, dated at Salem, on the Muskingum, June 7th, 
1780, will give some idea of the sufferings that were experienced: 
"Some days ago, one man and an old woman, came from Niagara, 
who acquaint me that last winter, three hundred Indians died at 
that place of the flux." 



The destruction of the Onondagas formed a part of the general 
plan of Sullivan's campaign against the Six Nations and preceded 
it. The command of the eastern division of that expedition having 
been assigned Gen. James Clinton, he detailed Col. Van Schaick, 
assisted by Col. Willett and Major Cochran for the one against 
the Onondagas. Gen. Clinton instructed Col. Van Schaick to 
sweep away their villages and fields — to take as many prisoners as 
he could, with as Httle bloodshed as possible. On the 19th of 
April, 1779, with about five hundred and fifty effective men. Col. 
Van Schaick left Fort Schuyler. Notwithstanding bad and rainy 
weather, swollen streams and morasses, he arrived at the Onondaga 
settlements on the third day. For the purpose of falling upon as 
many towns at the same time as possible, the men were divided in 
detachments with orders to make their attacks simultaneously. The 
detachments suddenly came upon the Indian hamlets that were 
scattered through the valley of the Onondaga Creek, and began 
their devastating work. Indian villages were soon wrapt in flames, 
cultivated fields destroyed, gardens spoiled, provisions wasted, and 
cattle of all kinds killed. When they discovered that an enemy 
had so unexpectedly rushed into their very midst, and was spreading 
ruin on every side, they fled so precipitately that they left every 
thing behind them, even their guns and other weapons of war. 
From a state of security and plenty, in a day, the Onondagas were 
reduced to misery and want — became houseless and destitute. 
Though they professed to be friendly to the Americans, their war 
parties had long hovered on the borders of the frontiers and around 
Fort Schuyler, scalping and murdering, imprisoning and torturing 
all the white inhabitants they could. The influence of this expedi- 
tion was salutary on the Oneidas, who were really friendly in their 
feelings to the Americans. The Oneidas and Tuscaroras sent a 
deputation to Fort Schuyler, and renewed their promises of friend- 



382 HISTORY OF THE 

ship. Having successfully accomplished the objects of the expe- 
dition Col. Van Schaick marched back to Fort Schuyler, without 
loosing a single man. 



In the spring and summer of 1780, the Mohawk valley was again 
invaded, Sir John Johnson heading the expedition — Johnstown 
the point of attack. Brant was again upon the war path. He 
attacked Canajoharie, burning houses, wasting property, and put- 
ting to death, and making captive, the inhabitants. Jointly the two 
leaders, one of the loyalists, and the other of the Indians, extended 
the incursions into Schoharie. They re-enacted the terrible scenes 
that have been described, occurring upon previous visits. The next 
year, 1781, the Indians in alliance with the corps of Johnson and 
Butler, harrassed the frontiers, and kept the settlers in a state of 
dread and alarm. 

In August, Major Ross and Walter Butler, came from Canada 
by the way of Sacondaga to Johnstown, with a force of five hun- 
dred regulars, Tories and Indians, and encamped near Johnson Hall. 
They were attacked by Col. Marinus Willett with a force of 
three hundred men, in the end obliged to give way. They retreated 
up the Mohawk, hotly pursued by their conqueror. Col. Willett. 

In the month of January, 1783, Gen. Washington, not having 
yet bee,n apprised of the treaty of peace, conceived the plan of 
surprising and obtaining possession of the important fortress of 
Oswego. The possession of this post and Niagara had given the 
enemy great advantage throughout the war. Oswego was then 
one of the most formidable military defences on the continent. 
The hazardous enterprise was confided to Col. Willett. There 
is now residing in Bloomfield, Ontario county, a venerable pioneer 
of western New York, — Benjamin Goss — who was with Col. 
Willett in this expedition. From him, the author received some 
account of it during the last summer: — With great secresy, as the 
original intention was a surprise. Col. Willett assembled his 
force at Fort Herkimer on the 8th of February, and there provided 
a large portion of them with snow shoes, as they had no beaten 
track to follow, and the snow was from two feet and a half to three 
feet deep. The men thus provided, went ahead and made a track 
for a cavalcade of two hundred sleighs that followed, carrying the 
remainder of the troops, and the baggage. The expedition crossed 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 283 

Oneida lake on the ice, and arriving at Fort Brewington, at the 
foot of the lake, the sleighs were left. Here a large number of the 
pressed militia, having seen enough of a winter campaign in the 
wilderness, deserted. An Oneida Indian was selected as the pilot 
through the woods to Oswego. He, by mistake, or purposely, 
misled the expedition, which occasioned great delay in arriving at 
the garrison, and much suffering from cold and hunger. When 
they supposed themselves near the garrison, and began to prepare 
for the attack, they discovered that they had gone in another 
direction, were lost in the forest, the deep snow adding m-uch to 
their perplexity and embarrassment. Changing their course, they 
arrived within four miles of the place of destination, but in a 
condition that did not justify an attack upon a strong fortification. 
The men had been three days without provision, were wearied by 
marching in the deep snow, and their ammunition had become 
much injured. — Col. Willett upon consultation with his officers, 
resolved reluctantly to forego the attack, and retrace his steps. 
Tiie retreat was attended with even more suffering than the 
advance. From the time the expedition left Fort Plain until its 
return there, it was twelve days of almost constant suffering from 
cold or hunge?', or both combined. Many of the men had their 
feet frozen, our informant among the number. On the return of 
the expedition to Albany, it was met by the welcome news of 
peace, proclaimed by the town clerk at the city Hall. 

" The incursion of Ross and Butler was the last made into the 
county of Tryon. Indeed, there was no longer any thing to destroy. 
The inhabitants lost all but the soil they cultivated; their beautiful 
county, except in the vicinity of the forts, was turned into a 
wilderness. During the war, famine sometimes appeared inevi- 
table, and it was with difficulty that they preserved from the 
ravages of the enemy sufficient grain to support their families 
during the winter. The resistance of the inhabitants on the fron- 
tier settlements, however unimportant it may seem, because no great 
battles were fought, or important victories won, was of very 
considerable moment in the cause for which they struggled; they 
kept back the enemy from the towns of the Hudson, and thus frus- 
trated the plan of the British for establishing a line of posts along 
that river. And while we admire the heroism and patriotism of 
those worthies of the Revolution, whose names have come down 
to us surrounded with a halo of glory, we should not withhold our 
praise from those obscure individuals in the frontier settlements, 



284 HISTORY OF THE 

who, amid the most appalling dangers, smrounded on all sides by 
enemies and traitors, still refused to submit to oppression and arbi- 
trary exactions, though allured by assurances of safety and prom- 
ises of reward. Many left their homes; many fell in battle in the 
regular army, and in skirmishes and battles with the enemy at 
home, and many fell silently by the rifle, the tomahawk, and the 
scalping knife of tlie Indian." * 



Having now travelled over a period of one hundred and seventy- 
five years — from the advent of Champlain upon the St. Lawrence 
to the close of the American Revolution — we have done, for a 
while, with wars,t and mostly, with the "rumors of wars'" — -and 
enter upon the more pleasing task of recording the peaceful 
triumphs of civilization and improvement — of enterprise and 
mdustry. 

The settlement of Western New York followed soon after the 
peace of 1783. Our national independence achieved — the glorious 
prospect of future peace and prosperity, opening upon our country 
— men's minds soon began to turn to the extension of the bounds 
of civilization and improvement — the enlargement of the theatre 
upon which the experiment of free government and free institutions 
was to be enacted. The war closed — the armies discharged — 
there were many, poor in purse, but rich in all the elements that 
fitted them to become the pioneers of the wilderness, the founders 
of new settlements. There had come along with Sullivan to the 
regions of Western New York, a great number of those who, 
looking forward to the end of the war, converted the expedition to 
the two-fold purpose of quelling the disturbers of the border set- 
tlers, and viewmg the country they inhabited, with an eye to future 
enterprises. Tbey passed through the vallies of the Mohawk, of 
our interior lakes, of the Susquehannah, delighted at every step 
with the beautiful prospects that surrounded them, until arriving at 
the valley of the Genesee, it realized their highest hopes and most 
extravagant anticipations. They returned to their homes to mingle 
with the narratives of an Indian war, descriptions of the country 
they had seen; resolved themselves to retrace their steps upon the 

* Campbell's Annals. 

t With the exception of some brief references to the campaigns of St. Clair and 
Wavne. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 285 

more peaceful mission of emigration and settlement; and their 
representations turned the attention of others in this direction. 
Thus War — as it is often its province to do — as if it was the will 
of Providence to make evils productive of blessings — aided in 
hastening and achieving one of the noblest triumphs of Peace. 



[Before commencing to trace the progress of settlement westward, brief biographical 
sketches of individuals who were in Western New York, previous to white settlement, 
captives, one of them a voluntarj' exile; — will be inserted in a separate chapter.] 



286 HISTORY OF THE 



CHAPTER IV. 

BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 
HORATIO JONES. 



Horatio Jones, an Indian captive, was born in December, 
1763, in Bedford county, Pennsylvania. His father was a black- 
smith, and intended that his son should follow the same business. 
But at a very early age, Horatio's love of adventure and military 
life, showed itself by his voluntarily going off with companies of 
soldiers as a fifer, and cheerfully enduring all the privations of the 
camp. He was active, enterprising, fearless — possessed of a 
powerful frame, capable of enduring any amount of fatigue, a sure 
and accomplished marksman. Though but a boy, hardly capable 
of fully understanding the merits of the contest, yet with the ardent 
enthusiasm of youth, he joined the patriot ranks, ready and willing 
to face any danger and perform any duty. In 1781, he enlisted as 
a soldier in the army of the United States, and belonged to a com- 
pany called "Bedford Rangers." This company repaired to a 
neighboring fort, to be reinforced, and then to march into the 
Indian country. When the company arrived at the fort, the 
garrison there was found so weak that no soldiers could be spared. 
Notwithstanding this, Capt. Dunlap, the commander of the com- 
pany, resolved to proceed with the small force he had with him. 
He had not gone far, before he was surrounded by Indians, who 
simultaneously fired upon him, killed nine of his men, took eight 
prisoners, among the latter of whom, was himself and young 
Jones. Jones tried to make his escape by flight, but he fell down, 
was overtaken and captured. 

The captives were carried into the wilderness. For two days 
they were entirely without food, and on the third day only the 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 287 

entrails of a bear was allowed them. Capt. Dunlap was wounded. 
Showing some slight evidence of exhaustion, an Indian, fearing 
that he might be troublesome, silently stepped up behind him, and 
without a warning word, struck a hatchet deep into the back of his 
neck, stripped off his scalp, and left him to die. For the first two 
or three days after their capture, the Indians were very cautious 
and watchful; they would hardly allow a gun to be fired, lest the 
sound might guide their pursuers. After the fourth day, they 
began to relax their vigilance. A hunting party had been out and 
prepared some food. The Indians pointed it out to Jones, who 
supposed that thev intended it as an invitation to dine; so he com- 
menced running toward the spot, and they after him; when he 
reached it, he stopped. The Indians, supposing that he was trying 
to make his escape, laid him on his back, tied each limb to a tree, 
drove pronged sticks over his arms and legs, and in that condition 
kept him all night, his face upwards and the rain falling in it. 
During their forest journey, they regarded Jones with so much 
favor that they relieved him of his burden. Observing that one 
of his fellow-captives, older and feebler than himself, was over- 
loaded, he generously took part of his load and carried it for him. 
When they arrived at the Indian settlement, at Nunda, Alleghany 
county, he was informed that a council had been held, and the 
Great Spirit had interposed in his behalf. He was taken to a height 
near the village, by an Indian, who showed him a wigwam at a 
considerable distance, and said if he could reach that unhurt, all 
would be well— r if he passed through the fearful trial safely, he 
would be adopted and regarded as one of themselves. He imme- 
diately began the perilous race, swiftly pressing his way forward 
through a shower of clubs, stones, knives, hatchets and arrows — 
skillfully dodging and evading them all — he reached his destination 
and was received as one of their nation. 

Jones possessed those qualities both of mind and body which 
the Indians most admire and respect. He was strong and finely 
proportioned, and able to rival any of them in those feats which 
they regard as tests of manliness. He was bold and fearless. By 
his care and prudence he soon gained their confidence and esteem. 
He became familiar with their language, and was often employed 
as an interpreter. 

The life which he led among his new associates seems to have 
been marked by all the vicissitudes which distinguish the Indian 



288 HISTORY OF THE 

state. He accommodated himself to his new situation, and made 
himself as happy as circumstances would allow. Though sur- 
rounded by savages, he had the courage to resent any insults they 
ventured to offer. When they threw hatchets at him he threw 
them back, and often with better success than they had. On one 
occasion, an Indian named Sharpshins, commenced the play of 
throwing tomahawks at Jones, in earnest. Jones threw them back 
with such effect as to endanger the life of Sharpshins, and render 
his recovery from the wound doubtful. He however, got well, and 
was careful how he provoked the "pale face warrior." He made 
himself very useful to them in repairing their hunting implements 
and weapons of war. 

In the chase successful, swift on the race course, often outstrip- 
ping their fleetest runners — temperate in his habits — cheerful in 
his dispositions — with a firm and fearless spirit, he soon became a 
great favorite with the Indians, he acquired a power and influence 
over them which he always exercised on the side of humanity, and 
saved captives from the lingering tortures of an Indian execution. 
He was often chosen arbiter to decide their disputes, and so 
uniformly just were his decisions, that he used to draw acknowl- 
edgements of the correctness of his judgements from those against 
whom he decided. 

The history of his residence among the Indians is full of thrilling 
incidents and daring adventures. Without any very strict adhe- 
rence to order, we shall speak of some of them: — 

He had not been with them long before a "young brave" began 
to amuse himself at the expense of Jones, who warned him in vain 
to desist. At dinner one day, the young Indian renewed his sport; 
Jones jumped up, ran to the fire, seized a boiling squash by the 
neck, gave chase, overtook the Indian, and thrust the hot squash 
between his loose garments and bare skin. After this he was per- 
mitted to eat his dinner in peace. 

Jones often saved the lives of prisoners. Major Van Campen, 
with two others, having fallen into their hands, they were placed 
under a guard of seven Indians. The prisoners managed to get 
loose during the night, kill all the Indians, except one, who ran 
away with Van Campen's hatchet sticking in his back. The White 
prisoners made their escape. Van Campen became an object of 
their deadly hatred. He soon after fell into their hands again. A 
council was assembled to determine his fate. Jones knew that he 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 289 

was the man who " lent John Mohawk the hatchet," but wished to 
conceal it from the rest of the Indians. In the midst of the council 
sat Van Campen, calm, unmoved, self possessed, closely watching 
every new comer, expecting soon to see John Mohawk enter with 
the fatal loan. Jones leaped over the heads of the Indians, and 
acted as interpreter, asking questions and answering them. The 
Indians were induced to refer the case to their prophet, who decided 
that the life of the prisoner should be spared. 

Jones, with his Indian father and family, were in the habit of 
making annual visits to their relatives, living on Grand river, in 
Canada. They went through Tonawanda village, down the south 
side of the creek, to its mouth and were anxious to get across that 
night to camp at Schlosser. A canoe lay opposite them, on the 
north side of the creek. Jones wanted to swim across and get it, 
but his Indian father told him no one ever attempted to swim the 
Tonawanda, but was drowned by the witches — sunk under the 
water, and never seen afterwards. Jones told him that he be- 
longed to a nation that could control the witches in the water, and 
said he could bring the canoe over. His Indian mother told him to 
mind his father, as he was a man of sense and years. Jones and 
his brothers being set to work to make a camp fire, he watched his 
opportunity, plunged into the water, and, much to the surprise of the 
Indians, succeeding in swimming across, and in bringing the canoe 
over. When he came back he was caressed by the party for his 
miraculous escape. They encamped that night at Fort Schlosser. 
The next morning they went down to Niagara. A British officer 
wanted to purchase Jones — having bought two prisoners of the 
same family before. The Indian father refused the offer, because 
Jones was his adopted son. The officer offered gold and told how- 
rich his father, the King, was. "Go and tell your father the king, 
that he is not rich enough to buy Ta-e-da-o-qua," replied the Indian. 
The triumph of Jones over the witches at Tonawanda made him 
valued more than before among the Indians. 

At one period of his life he became dissatisfied with his manner 
of living, and resolved to visit the home and scenes of his child- 
hood. He accordingly started and traveled a day; night came, 
and he began to reflect how few of his youthful associates would 
remember him; how fewer still might be the number remaining there, 
and how coldly he might be received. The morning found him 
retracing his steps, with no more thoughts of changing his condition. 
19 



390 HISTORY OF THE 

When this whole region of country was a wilderness, and the 
roads, that are now lined on either side by well cultivated fields, 
were not even marked out, Capt. Horatio Jones was often 
employed to convey money and dispatches from one distant place 
to another. He was always faithful and trust worthy, never 
failing to transact the business on which he was sent. These 
journeys, which he often performed alone, were then attended with 
difficulties and dangers few can now appreciate. The thickest 
leaved tree was his only shelter from the storm when night came 
on; the pure spring his only hotel, where he partook of his frugal 
meal, which he carried with him. Yet with a brave heart and 
cheerful spirit, would he start off on these journeys, heedless of the 
perils that he might have to encounter. 

The change made in his course of life by his captivity, he seems 
never to have regretted, but to have voluntarily acquiesced in, 
when it was in his power to return to his former home. He loved 
forest-life — its unrestrained liberty — its comparative freedom from 
want and care — the opportunities which it afforded him for 
indulging in his favorite pursuits of hunting and fishing, and 
beholding and admiring nature in its primitive beauty and grandeur. 

Settlement, civilization, came to him; he did not seek it; though 
adapting himself again to the associations from which he had long 
been an exile, he made himself useful in the early period of 
emigration to the Genesee valley. — When his brother, John H. 
Jones, came to the Seneca lake in Oct. 1788, be found him there, 
surrounded "with quite a httle settlement — every house was 
covered with barks, no boards or shingles to be had." His son, 
Wm. W. Jones, now residing at Leicester, Livingston Co., was 
born at Geneva, in Dec. 1786, and was the first white male child 
born west of Utica. In the spring of 1790, Capt. Jones and 
family, went upon the Genesee river, occupying at first, an Indian 
house, in Little Beard's town. 

Soon after the treaty of peace, between the United States and 
the Six Nations, President Washington appointed Capt. Jones 
Indian Interpreter, which office he held until within a year or two 
of his death. For near forty years he discharged the duties of the 
oflice with ability and fidelity. 

At a council held by the Six Nations, at Genesee river, Nov. 
1798, it was decreed that a present should be made to Capt. Jones 
and Capt. Parrish. To this end a speech was made by Farmer's 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 291 

Brother, which was intended as a communication to the Legisla- 
ture of this state, asking its co-operation in the matter. The 
title was finally confirmed. An extract from the speech is 
inserted: — 

"Brothers: — This whirlwind," (the Revolution,) "was so 
directed by the Great Spirit above, as to throw into our arms two 
of your infant children, Horatio Jones and Jasper Parrish. We 
adopted them into our families, and made them our children. We 
nourished them and loved them. They fived with us many years. 
At length the Great Spirit spoke to the whirlwind, and it was still. 
A clear and uninterrupted sky appeared. The path of peace was 
opened, and the chain of friendship was once more made bright. 
Then these adopted children left us to seek their relations. We 
wished them to return among us, and promised, if they would 
return and live in our country, to give each of them a seat of land 
for them and their children to sit down upon. 

"Brothers: — They have returned, and have for several years 
past been serviceable to us as Interpreters, we still feel our hearts 
beat with affection for them, and now wish to fulfill the promise 
we made them, for their services. — W^e have therefore made up 
our minds to give them a seat of two square miles of land lying on 
the outlet of lake Erie, beginnmg at the mouth of a creek, known 
as Suyguquoydes creek, running one mile from the Niagara river, 
up said creek, thence northerly, as the river runs, two miles, thence 
westerly, one mile to the river, thence up the river as the river 
runs, two miles to the place of beginning, so as to contain two 
square miles." 

Capt. Jones died at his residence upon the Genesee river, in 
1836, at the age of seventy-five years; — in the full possession and 
excercise of all his mental faculties — his eye undimmed — his 
nerves unstrung — full of years, and without reproach. 

Note. — Those from whom the author derived the information contained in this 
biographical sketch, did not name the fact of his having left the Indians for a short 
period after the Revolution; which fact is to be inferred from the language of Farmer's 
Brother. Whatever may have been the fact with regard to a temporary residence 
among the whites, it would seem that he had returned, and had a family upon the 
Seneca lake as earlv as 1786. 



292 HISTORY OF THE 



JASPER PARRISH. 



Capt. Jasper Parrish was born in March, 1766, in Windham 
Connecticut. He was quite young when his parents moved to 
Luzerne county, Pennsylvania. Soon after the Massacre of 
Wyoming, when only eleven years old, he was taken captive by a 
party of Delawares, and carried away by them from his home. 
During the seven years of his captivity, he was often transferred 
from one tribe to another among the Six Nations, and exposed to 
all the hardships and privations of Indian life. While he was 
among them, by his prudent and conciliatory conduct, he managed 
to gain their confidence and good will. He learned and became 
familiar with the language of five different nations, and he could 
speak them all with fluency and correctness. In the treaty 
negotiated at Fort Stanwix between the United States and the Six 
Nations, in 1784, the Indians agreed to surrender all their prisoners 
and captives. Parrish, with others was accordingly released. 
He was shortly appointed Indian Interpreter, and afterwards a 
sub-agent of Indian affairs, by the government of the United 
States. He discharged the duties of these offices in a manner 
entirely satisfactory to his own government and the Indians, for 
more than thirty years. He was an early pioneer in Ontario 
county, having settled at Canandaigua as early as 1792. 

At a very tender age, when he could hardly begin even to 
appreciate its consequences, he was destined to experience how 
sudden and awful are some of the misfortunes of life. We can 
scarcely conceive of a more startling and fearful change, than to 
be suddenly taken from the midst of civilization, and carried into 
barbarism; — to be compelled to relinquish the comforts, usages and 
associations of the one, and be forced to submit to the hardships, 
privations and customs of the other. It was the lot of Parrish, 
as it had been the lot of others, to suffer such a reverse of fortune. 
But he seems to have met it with manly fortitude, and even to 
have profited by it. In 1836, at the age of sixty-nine, he died, 
respected and happy in the varied relations of life. 

What in all human probability, appeared to have been the 
greatest evil that could have befallen these captives individually, 
perhaps was the source of the greatest good to the country 
generally. During their captivity, they gained a more thorough 



HOLLAiND PURCHASE. 29;^ 

and extensive knowledge of the character, language, habits, man- 
ners, &c. of the Indians, than they could otherwise have acquired. 
They were adopted by the Indians into their families, regarded as 
members of their nations. These captives saw them in war, and 
in peace — around the council fire and on the battle field — at home 
and abroad. Our government redeemed them whenever it could 
— and availed itself of their knowledge and experience, employed 
them as interpreters and agents, consulted and advised with them; 
and with their assistance, the proprietorship and possession of a 
whole continent has been essentially changed; civilization has taken 
the place of barbarism; — the works of man, his art and his science, 
are transforming the whole face of nature, and giving a new and 
different direction, to its course and destiny. 



MARY JEMISON. 



The interesting and instructive narrative of the captivity and 
life of Mary Jemison, written as she herself related the story to 
her biographer before the faculties of her mind were impaired, 
though more than three quarters of a century afterwards, has 
made most readers familiar with her strange fortunes. 

In the summer of 1755, during the French and Indian wars, her 
father's house, situated on the western frontier of Pennsylvania, 
was surrounded by a band, consisting of six Indians and four 
Frenchmen. They plundered and carried away whatever they 
could that was valuable, and took the whole family captive, with 
two or three others, who were staying with it, at the time. They 
were all immediately hastened away into the wilderness, murdered 
and scalped, with the exception of Mary and a small boy, who 
were carried to Fort Du Quesne. Little Mary was there given 
to two Indian sisters, who came to that place to get a captive to 
supply the place of a brother that had been slain in battle. They 
took her down the Ohio to their home, adopted her as their sister, 
under the name of Dehhewamis — a word signifying "a beautiful 
girl." The sorrow and regret w^hich so sudden and fearful a 
change in her condition produced, gradually yielded under the 

Note — The prominent position of Capt. Pariish at an early period of the settlement 
of Western New York, would suggest a more extended biography than the author 
could obtain materials to make. He found himself in possession of no data beyond a 
brief obituary notice in the Ontario Repository. 



294 HISTORY OF THE 

influence of time; and she began to feel quite reconciled to her 
fate, when an incident occurred, which once more revived her 
hopes of being redeemed from captivity and restored to her friends. 
When Fort Pitt fell into the possession of the British, Mary was 
taken with a party who went there to conclude a treaty of peace 
with the English. She immediately attracted the notice of the 
white people, who showed great anxiety to know how one so 
young and so delicate came among the savages. Her Indian 
sisters became alarmed, and fearing that they might lose her, 
suddenly fled away with her, and carried her back to their forest 
home. Her disappointment was painful and she brooded over it 
for many days, but at length regained her usual cheerfulness, and 
contentment. As soon as she was of sufficient age, she was 
married to a young Delaware Indian, named Sheninjee. Notwith- 
standing her reluctance at first to become the wife of an Indian, 
her husband's uniform kind treatment and gentleness, soon won her 
esteem and affection, and she says: — " Strange as it may seem, 1 
loved him !" — and she often spoke of him as her "kind husband." 
About 1759, she concluded to change her residence. With a little 
child, on foot, she traveled to the Genesee river, through the 
pathless wilderness, a distance of near six hundred miles, and 
fixed her home at Little Beard's Town. When she came there, 
she found the Senecas in alliance with the French; they were 
making pi'eparations for an attack on Fort Schlosser; and not a 
great while after, enacted the tragedy at the Devil's Hole. Some- 
time after her arrival, she received intelligence of the death of her 
husband, Sheninjee, who was to have come to her in the succeed- 
ing spring. They had lived happily together, and she sincerely 
lamented his death. 

When the war between England and France ended, she might 
have returned to the English, but she did not. She married 
another Indian, named Hiakatoo, two or three years after the 
death of Sheninjee. When Gen. Sullivan invaded the Genesee 
country, her house and fields shared a common fate with the rest. 
When she saw them in ruiijs — with great energy and perseve- 
rance, she immediately went to making preparation for the coming 
winter. Taking her two youngest children on her back, and 
l)idding the other three follow, she sought employment. She found 
an opportunity to husk corn, and secured in that way twenty-five 
hushf Is of shelled corn, which kept them through the winter. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 295 

After the close of the Revolution, she obtained the grant of a 
large tract of land, called the " Gardeau Reservation," which was 
about six miles in length and five in breadth. With the exception 
of some deeply afflicting domestic calamities, and the uneasiness 
and discontent which she felt as the white people gathered around, 
and her old Indian associates departed, but little occurred in her 
after life which need be noticed here. In 1831, preferring to pass 
the remainder of her days in the midst of those with whom her youth 
and middle age had been spent, she sold the rest of her land at 
Gardeau Flatts, purchased a farm on the Buffalo Reservation, 
where the Senecas, among whom she had long lived, had settled 
some five years previous. She passed the remainder of her days 
in peace and quietness, embraced the Christian religion, and on the 
19th of September, 1833, ended a life that had been marked by 
vicissitudes, such as it is the lot of but few to experience. 

The story of her family, of her son John, especially, — his mur- 
der of his brothers, &c., has been well narrated in the small work 
originally written by James E. Seaver, and afterwards enlarged 
and improved by Ebenezer Mix. The author in his boyhood, has 
often seen the "White Woman," as she was uniformly called 
by the early settlers; and remembers well the general esteem in 
which she was held. Notwithstanding she had one son who was a 
terror to Indians, as well as the early white settlers, she has left 
many descendants who are not unworthy of her good name. 
Jacob Jemison, a grand son of hers, received a liberal education, 
passed through a course of medical studies, and was appointed an 
assistant surgeon in the U. S. Navy. He died on board of his ship, 
in the Mediterranean. 

Soon after the war of 1812, an altercation occurred between 
David Reese, of Buffalo — (who was at the time the government 
blacksmith for the Senecas upon the Reservation near Buffalo) — 
and a Seneca Indian called Young King, which resulted in a 
severe blow with a scythe, inflicted by Reese, which nearly 
severed one of the Indian's arms; so near in fact, that amputation 
was immediately resorted to. The circumstance created consid- 
erable excitement among the Indians, which extended to Gardeau, 
the then home of the Jemison family. John Jemison, headed a 
party from there, and went to Buffalo, giving out as he traveled 
along the road, that he was going to " kill Reese." The author 
saw him on his way, and recollects how well he personated the 



2»t» HISTORY OF THE 

ideal *'aM<;cl of ilcatli." His weapons wcro the war club and 
toinaliawk; ichI paint was daubed upon his swarthy face, and long 
bunches of horse hair, colored red, were danglin»j; from each arm; 
his warhki^ ai»i)earance was well calculated to give an earnest to 
his threats, Ivi'.iosk was kept secrtMed, and thus in all ]n-obability, 
avoided the fule that even kinilri>d had met at the hands of .Ioun 
Jkmison. 

Mrs. lir.ACKiMAN, a surviving daughter of Petkk Pitts, the 
early pionei'r upon the lloneoyo Flatts, says: — "Mrs. Jkmison 
used to be at our house frequently, on her journeys from Gardeau 
to Canandaigua and back. Bii<i, Antis at Canandaigua used to do 
her blacksmithing. She was a smart intelligent woman. She 
us(>tl often to sit down and tell my father stories of her captivity; 
hut always avoided doing it in the h(>aring of her Indian husband, 

lll.VKATOO." 

[X^See notice of burial place of Mary Jkmison, p. 09. 



EBENEZER, alias, » INDIAN ALLAN. 



It has been, in all periods of history, a marked, prominent result 
of War, to draw out, develope the character of men. The ilint, 
ini'it of itself, is not more sure, when brought in quick contact with 
hardeiu'd steel, to produce fire, than ai'c the exigencies of War, to 
proiluee daring, adventurous spirits; — both good and bad. ]No 
people, or age, dwelling in peace and quiet, undisturbed, know how 
nuieh of the elements of good ami evil, in men's characters, are 
slumbering, awaiting a stimulus, or call to action. How well was 
this illustrated by the whole history of our Revolution! The great 
colonial exigencies occurred — separation — war; — a great neces- 
sity was created; and men were found equal to it. There came 
out from the quiet w^alks of life, here and there, often from whence 
least expected, the bold, the daring — the men to lead in lield and 
council — fitted to the terrible emergency; gifted with the skill, 
bravery and prudence, to carry it to a successful termination. 

The history of the border wars, cotcmporiu-y with the Revolu- 
tion, and prolonged beyond it; those that have succeeded them 
upon our western and northw^estern frontiers; are replete with 
illustrations. Tlu^y partook largely of the character of civil or 
internal commotions — of feuds between joint occupants of a soil 
or country; they were predatory — governed little by any settled 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 297 

rules or regulations; dependent upon skill, cunning, stratagem; the 
stealthy onset, and when necessary, the quick and irregular retreat. 
The assailants knew no rules of regular warfaie; the assailed must 
adapt themselves to the exigency; and well did they do so. 
There is hardly to be found in the whole range of history, an 
account of war, or wars, so full of personal adventure, of individ- 
ual daring, of all that would interest and instruct, if gathered up 
and recorded, as is all that relates to the border wars of New York. 
The truthful historian, finds a marked extraordinary character, or 
characters, in every prominent feature of the bloody contest; in 
after times the novelist may find a basis of truth, for a wide range 
of fancy. 

These are thoughts that have occurred, after a brief review of 
some memorandums, made in conversation of those who knew 
Ehenezer Ai.iiAN; and the i)erusal of some notices of him in the 
life of Mauy Jemison; and yet they are mainly not applicable to 
him; for he was no hero, — but rather a desperado. lie warred 
against his own race, country and color; vied with his savage allies 
in deeds of cruelty and blood-shed. As a portion of his life was 
spent in Western New York; and especially, as he was prominent 
in an early period of settlement, some notice of him may be 
regarded as coming within the scope of local history. 

He was a native of New Jersey; joined himself to the back- 
woodsmen of the valley of the Susquehannah, who under Buant 
and Butler, were allies of England — leagued, and co-operating 
with the Indians.* Mrs. .Temison says she has "often heard him 
relate his inglorious feats, and confess crimes, the rehearsal of 
which made my blood curdle, as much accustomed as I was to hear 
of bloody and barbarous deeds." A detail of the enormities he 
confessed — though it is said, with some professions of regret — 
would be but a recapitulation of tales of horror, with which narra- 
tives of the border wars abound. 



* Little is known of his early histoiy, birth, parentage &c. Mrs. Gkoroe Hosmer, 
of Avon speaks of a sister of his, as her early tutor, at a period when there were no 
schools. Slio had married a British soldier, named Dugan, and resided upon a farm of 
Allan's at " Dtigan's creek," a small stream emptying into the Genesee river a few 
miles helow Avon Springs; and at another period, at Allan's mill. Mrs. Hosmer 
speaks of hor as a well educated, and otherwise accomplished woman, who had con- 
uoct«d herself in marriage to one in every way unworthy of hor. She had been in the 
capacity of governess in the family of Lord Stirling, in New Jersey; others, who knew 
hor in her singularly chosen retreat, in the wilderness — dependant principally, for support 
upon a brother who seems to have fled from civilized life because he was unworthy of 
a participation in its blessings — speak of hor in high terms of praise and commendation. 



298 HISTORY OF THE 

Near the close of the Revolutionary war, Allan, then a young 
man, made his first appearance on the Genesee river. He had 
acquired the habits of Indian life, made Mrs. Jemison's house his 
residence; — seemed an adventurer, alienated by his ov^^n acts from 
kindred and home; and partly from choice, and partly from neces- 
sity, seeking a permanent abode with his war associates. 

As it was a preliminary step to after feats of gallantry, in which 
he seems to have had a sovereign contempt for the usages of 
savage as well as civilized life, it may be mentioned here, that he 
had not been long at Gardeau, when he disturbed the domestic 
relations of a white tenant of Mrs, Jemison, who had married a 
squaw. Unfortunately the two had a similarity of tastes. This, 
after an open rupture and separation, resulted in a reconciliation, a 
condition of which, was to remove away from the captivating 
influences of the new comer. 

He turned his attention to agriculture; worked the fine flats of 
Mrs. Jemison, until after the peace, in 1783, when he ventured to 
Philadelphia, and returned with a horse and some dry-goods; built 
a house, and settled at Mount Morris. He seemed disposed to 
peace. Learning that the British and Indians, upon this frontier, 
and in Canada, were determined to prolong the war, and continue 
their attacks upon the settlements in the Mohawk valley, he fore- 
stalled their action by an ingenious fraud. Just before an expe- 
dition was to start, he procured a belt of wampum and carried it 
as a token of peace to the nearest American post. The Indians 
were very unexpectedly informed that the overtures of peace M'ere 
accepted. The wampum, although presented without their consent, 
was a sacred thing with them, and they determined to bury the 
hatchet — go no more out upon the war path with their British 
allies. The British at Fort Niagara, however, and the Indians, 
mutually resolved to punish Allan. For months he was pursued; 
but skulking in the woods, hiding in the cleft rocks, approaching 
the hospitable wigwam of his friend the White Woman, stealthily, 
at night, and getting food; he managed to keep out of their 
clutches. The matter apparently dying away, the chase aban- 
doned, Allan, "all in tatters, came in;" Hi-a-ka-too, the husband 
of Mrs. Jemison, giving him a blanket and a piece of broadcloth, 
with which he made himself some trousers. Dressed up, and 
recruited a little, he turned his attention to matrimony; — married 
a squaw, whose name was Sally. The news of all this transpiring 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 299 

at Niagara, a party was sent down, who succeeded in arresting 
him. Just as they were arriving at the garrison, a house near by 
took fire, the guard went to extinguish the flames; Allan took 
to his heels. Arriving at Tonawanda, he armed himself, got some 
refreshments, and went on to Little Beard's Town, where he 
found his wife Sally. Attempting to go to Gardeau, he discov- 
ered a party of British and Indians in pursuit of him. Then 
followed weeks of skulking, lying in wait by his pursuers, a search 
of all the fastnesses of the forest; frequent approaches of the 
fugitive by night, to get food from the benevolent hand of the 
White Woman; until the pursuit was again abandoned, — the 
pursuers returning to Niagara. Allan again ventured out with 
assurances of protection by the Indians, who by this time, were 
generally his friends, and in favor of an armistice being extended 
to him; — believed "that the Niagara people were persecuting him 
without just cause." The chief, Little Beard, had given orders 
for his protection. His persecutors had appropriated his horse and 
goods, but all this" time, Mrs. Jemison had been the faithful 
depository of a " box of money and trinkets." Thus situated, in 
fancied security, the party again came on from Niagara, took him 
by surprise, and carried him bound to the garrison, where he was 
confined for the winter. In the spring, he was taken to Montreal 
for trial, and acquitted. There was probably no law, or precedent, 
for punishing the offence of carrying wampum to the enemy. It 
was a novel oflTence; and the proof must have been difficult to 
obtain. It probably aided in putting an end to the cruel warfare 
upon the border settlers upon the Mohawk and Susquehannah, 
stimulated and encouraged from the British, in this quarter — the 
authorities of Canada, the officers of Fort Niagara, at Kingston 
and Oswego, after peace had been concluded; and even after their 
allies of the Six Nations, wished to bury the tomahawk and 
scalping knife.* For so much, let " Indian Allan," be credited. 

He went immediately to Philadelphia, and purchased on credit, 
"a boat load of goods," bringing them to Mount Morris, by the 
way of Conhocton. He bartered them for ginseng and furs, which 
he sold at Niagara. He then planted corn, raised a large crop, and 
after harvesting it, moved down to the mouth of "Allan's creek" 

* It is evident from the whole narration, that it was the British, and not the Indians, 
who wished to punish Allan: that the Seuecas, were even glad of the excuse to 
refuse farther participation in the war. ^ 



300 HISTORY OF THE 

where he lived with his squaw Sally, who by this time had made 
him the fatlier of two daughters, named Mary and Chloe, He 
next season, entered into an arrangement with Phelps and Gor- 
HAM, in pursuance of which they gave him 100 acres of land, at 
the Genesee Falls, in consideration of his building a grist and saw- 
mill, to accommodate the few settlers in the surrounding country.* 

His friend, Mrs. Jemison, signahzes this advent of Allan as an 
early miller of this region, by two murders, and the obtaining of 
two additional wives. While conveying down the river some 
materials, an old German named Andrews, in his employ, gave 
him some offence, and as is supposed, he pushed him out of the 
canoe. Andrews was never afterwards heard of; Allan still 
resided at Allan's creek. 

While at the Falls, superintending the erection of his mills, a 
white man came along, emigrating to Canada. He had a young 
daughter, that took Allan's fancy; there was a summary courtship; 
the young woman, "nothing loth," consented; the ambitious emi- 
grant parents, thought the suitor rich, unmarried of course, 
consented. They were married. "Miss Lucy," — that was her 
name — had her dream of happiness soon interrupted. She was 
introduced to the domicile of her suddenly acquired husband, where 
she found a dark complexioned "Sally," a joint tenant, and co- 
partner in bed and board. She had none of her own race to 
appeal to for redress, the parents had gone on their way, and she, 
perhaps prudently, resolved to stay and make the best of it. 

The backwood's "Blue Beard" was about this time in a 
marrying way, and did not know where to stop. On a visit to Mrs, 
Jemison, at Gardeau, a short time after this, he saw a "young 
woman with an old husband," and deemed that circumstance, a 
justification for his gallantry. (Fatal to the happiness of many an 
old dotard, would such a deduction in moral ethics be in these latter 
days of January and May matches !) He poured into her ears the 



* The author has in his possession a quit claim deed, or rather an assignment of his 
right to this 100 acre tract, to Benjamin Barton, the father of Benjamin Barton, Jr. It 
would seem he had at the date of it, no written title to the land, but he authorises Messrs. 
Phelps and Gorham to deed to Mr. Barton. The consideration was "Two hundred 
pounds, N. York currency." It is in the hand writing of Samuel Ogden, and witnessed 
by " Gertrude Ogden," by which it would seem that it was executed in the city of New 
York. The signature is well executed. It is written " E. Allan " — not Allen. The 
land is described as being on the "west side of Genesee river in Ontario county: — 
bounded east bv the river, so as to take.in the mills recently erected by the said Allan." 
The instrument is dated March, 1792. 




HOLLAND PURCHASE. 301 

story of his wealth — his possessions at Allan's creek — his "Mills" 

— his influence; — and succeeded so far as to induce his victim to 
persuade her "old man" to accompany him home with his wife. 
Allan under pretence of showing him his flats on Allan's creek, 
took him out, and pushed him into the river. He saved himself 
from drowning, but died in a few days, in consequence of the fall 
and struggle. The young widow, remained in the harem for a 
year, and left. 

He removed from the creek, back to Mt. Morris, in the summer 
of 1792, it is presumed, as he sold the mill tract, early in that 
season. He built a house there; moved his remaining two wives 
into it; and soon resolved to fill the vacancy occasioned by the 
departure of the widow. He married Mille M'Gregor, the 
daughter of a white settler upon the Genesee flats. Taking her 
home, there was soon trouble in his domicil: — Sally and Lucy 
united, and whipped the new comer, Mille. She was provided 
with a separate residence. This is a sad picture, it is confessed, 
of morals and matrimony, in our region, at a primitive period; and 
yet it is a truthful record. It is a specimen of "freedom in the 
backwoods." 

In 1791, the Seneca Indians deeded to Allan in trust, for his 
two daughters, four square miles on the Genesee river, the tract 
which now embraces the beautiful village of Mount Morris. The 
deed commences by setting forth the reasons why the gift is made: 

— " It has been the custom of the nation from the earliest times of 
our forefathers, to the present day, to consider every person born 
of a Seneca woman as one of the nation, and as having equal rights 
with every one in the nation to lands belonging to it. And whereas, 
Kyendanent, named in EngHsh, Sally, has had two daughters 
born of her body, by our brother Jenuhshio, named in English, 
Ebenezer Allan; the names of said daughters being in English, 
Mary Allan, and Chloe Allan,"«S£c. It was provided in the 
deed that Allan should have the care of the land, until his daugh- 
ters were married, or became of age; that out of its proceeds he 
should cause the girls to be instructed "in reading and writing, 
sewing and other useful arts, according to the custom of the white 
people." Sally, the mother, was to have comfortable maintenance 
during her natural life, or as long as she "remained unjoined to an- 
other man." The deed is signed by the sachems and chiefs of the 
Seneca nation, and by Timothy Pickering as U. S. Commissioner; 



302 HISTORY OF THE 

witnessed by Horatio Jones. Jasper Parrish, Oliver Phelps. Ebene- 
zer Bowman. 

In pursuance of the provisions of the deed, Allan took the two 
daughters to Philadelphia and placed them in a school. Mrs. 
Blackman, to whom allusion has been made in a preceding page, 
remembers well when Allan returned with his daughters from 
Philadelphia, and staid at her fathers house over night. She says: 

— ''The party were on horseback, attended by a white man and a 
white woman, as waiters. Allan would not allow them to sit at 
table with him and his daughters. The daughters were fine looking 
well behaved girls. The early settlers here did not like Allan. 
I remember when he came near being burned up when dry grass 
caught fire on Genesee Flatts, and that people generally were sorry 
that he escaped. He has sit in my father's house often, and boasted 
of the murders he had committed on the Susquehannah, and his 
other exploits there." Mrs. B. says that Allan got the irons for 
his mill at Rochester, at Conhocton, and hired Indians to take them 
to Rochester on pack horses. 

John M' Kay, of Caledonia, says: — "I knew Allan well. He 
was about fifty years of age when I first came upon the Genesee 
river. He was tall and strait — light complexion — genteel in ap- 
pearance — of good address. Capt. Jones told me the story of 
Allan's carrying the wampum to the American commissioner, 
(not to the commandant of a post.) The Indians were very angry, 
but said Jones, such was the influence he had over them, they 
dared not to punish him." Mr. M' Kay thinks it was not a disinter- 
ested act; but that the goods he carried to Mount Morris were the 
proceeds of the pacific enterprize. 

In 1797, finding the white settlers getting too thick around him 

— the restraints of civilized life, that he had fled from in his youth, 
likely to interfere wdth his "perfect freedom" — he sold his prop- 
erty at Mount Morris, and moved to Delawaretown, on the 
Thames, (C. W.) taking with him his white wife, and leaving 
Sally and Mille behind. Gov. Simcoe granted him 3000 acres 
of land, upon condition, that he should build a saw-mill, grist-mill, 
and a church; all but the church, to be his property. He per- 
formed his part of the contract, and the title to his land was 
confirmed. In a few years, he had his mills, a comfortable dwel- 
ling, large improvements, was a good liver; and those who knew 
him at that period, represent him as hospitable and obliging. In 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 303 

two or three years after he left for Canada, Mille followed him, 
and when he was flourishing there, he had the two wives under one 
roof. Sally soon followed, remained in the neighborhood about 
a year, when she was driven away by the persecutions of the two 
white wives. An acquaintance of the author, who was for a long 
period his neighbor, says he once asked him how he could manage 
two women. He replied that he "ruled them with a rod of iron." 
The reader must have, ere this, discovered that he was the man 
thus to rule his household. 

About the year 1806 or '7, reverses began to overtake him. At 
one period, he was arrested and tried for forgery; at another, for 
passing counterfeit money; at another, for larceny. He was 
acquitted of each offence, upon trial. He was obnoxious to many 
of his white neighbors, and it is likely, that at least two of the 
charges against him, arose out of a combination that was prompted 
by personal enmity. All this brought on embarrassments, which 
terminated in an almost entire loss of his large property. He left 
Delav^^aretown, and went upon some land that had been leased to 
his daughters by the Indians. 

Soon after the breaking out of the war of 1812, he was sus- 
pected by the Canadian authorities, of being friendly to the 
Americans, of hotding a correspondence with Gen. Hull at 
Detroit; arrested and confined in jail at Niagara. He was bailed 
out upon condition that he should in no way interfere against the 
government. He took no part in the war; though he was evidently 
in favor of the Americans; alledging that the British government 
had illy requited his services. He died in 1814. 

His wife Mille, was the mother of six children; Lucy of one; 
and there were beside, the two half-breed daughters of Sally. 
An elderly lady of the author's acquaintance, knew these daughters 
well after they went to reside upon the Thames. They were 
tolerably educated, amiable and reputable. They died after hav- 
ing become the wives of white men, and the mothers of several 
children, who are supposed to be still living in Canada West. His 
son Seneca Allan, is a resident of one of the western states. 

Note. — Allan conveyed the land at Mount Morris, that was given to his daughters, 
to Robert Morris; by what right, it does not appear upou the records. Allan's creek, 
heading in Wyoming, passing through Warsaw, Le Roy, and emptying into the Gen- 
esee river at Scottsville, derives its name from the subject of our biographical sketch. 
He had a farm where Scottsville now is. 



PART FOURTH. 



CHAPTER I. 



PROGRESS OF SETTLEMENT WESTWARD, AFTER THE REVOLUTION. 



In the treaty of peace which ended the Revolution, Great 
Britian made no provisions for her Indian alhes. Notwithstanding 
their strong and well founded claims to British regard and protec- 
tion they were left to take care of themselves, and get out of the 
difficulties in which an unsuccessful war had involved them, as best 
they could. They were much offended and disappointed^ they 
complained of this conduct as unjust and ungrateful, in view of the 
sacrifices they had made, and losses they had sustained, all along 
through the war. They were sagacious enough to conclude, that 
if the arms of the "Thirteen Fires," had conquered them and 
their British allies united, there was little use in their contending 
single handed. A portion of them however, were not disposed to 
yield. Prompted by British agents, they were for leaguing with 
the North Western Indians, and reviving the war. Among these, 
was the youthful, subtle, and eloquent Red Jacket. But Corn 
Planter, and some others of the more influential Indians, counciled 
peace, and peaceable councils prevailed. 

Accordingly the sachems, chiefs and warriors, of the Six Nations, 
and the commissioners in behalf of the United States, assembled at 
Fort Stanwix in October, 1784, and concluded a treaty of peace 
and friendship. Oliver Wolcott, Richard Butler and Arthur Lee, 
acted as commissioners for the United States. The Six Nations 
agreed to surrender all their captives, and relinquish " all claims to 
the country lying west of a hne beginning at the mouth of Oyo- 
wagea creek, flowing into lake Ontario, four miles east of Niagara; 
thence southerly, but preserving a line four miles east of the carry- 
ing path, to the mouth of the Tehoseroron, or Buffalo creek; thence 
to the north boundary of Pennsylvania; thence east to the end of 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 305 

that boundary; and thence south along the Pennsylvania line to the 
river Ohio."* 

''The cession of their hunting grounds north-west of the Ohio, 
was vigorously, though unavailingly opposed by the red men. Sa- 
goyewatha, or Red Jacket, then young and nameless among the 
head men, rose rapidly in favor with the Senecas for his hostility to 
the measure — while the popularity of their great chief Cornplanter, 
suffered severely among his race for his partiality to the whites, in 
the arrangement." * * * " The patriotism of Red Jacket was 
then thoroughly aroused, and his wisdom and eloquence were gen- 
erally zealously employed to vindicate the rights of the red man 
against the encroaching influence of the pale faces. He was elected 
a chief among the Senecas, soon after this treaty, and his influence 
was great in the Indian confederacy for upwards of forty years."! 

After the conclusion of this treaty, the United States commis- 
sioners, in consequence of the then condition of the Six Nations, and 
in pursuance of the humane and liberal intentions of the government 
whose agents they were, distributed a large quantity of goods in 
the form of presents. 

It will be observed that at the treaty above referred to, the 
Indians made no cession of territory, but simply defined their 



* A bad definition of boundaries, but the reader will have no difficulty in seeing what 
was intended. 

t History of Rochester and Western New York. 

Note. — Lafayette was present at the treaty of Fort Stanwix. After the lapse of 
forty years, the generous Frenchman, the companion of Washington, and the Seneca 
orator again met. The author was present at the inteview. A concourse of citizens 
had been assembled for nearly two daj's, awaiting the arrival of the steam boat frona 
Dunkirk, which had been chartered by the committee of Erie county, to convey La- 
fayette to BuflFalo, and among them was Red Jacket He made, as usual, a somewhat 
ostentatious display of his medal — a gift from Washington — and it required the especial 
attention of a select committee to keep the aged chief from an indulgence — a " sin 
that so easily beset him," — which would have marred the dignity, if not the romancti 
of the intended interview. The reception, the ceremonies generally, were upon a sta- 
ging erected in front of " Rathbun's Eagle." After they were through with, Red Jacket 
was escorted upon the staging, by a committee. "The Douglass in his hall," — 
himself, in his native forest — never walked with a firmer step or a prouder bearing! 
There was the stoicism of the Indian — seemingly, the condescension, if it existed, was 
his, and not the "Nation's Guest." He addressed the General in his native tongue, 
through an interpreter who was present. During the interview, Lafayette not recog- 
nizing him, alluded to the treaty of Fort Stanwix: " And what" said he, "has become 
of the young Seneca, who on that occEision so eloquently opposed the burying of the 
tomahawk?" "He is now before you!" replied Red Jacket. The circumstance, as 
the reader will infer, revived in the mind of Lafayette, the scenes of the Revolution, 
and in his journey the next two days, his conversation was enriched by the remini»- 
cences which it called up. 

20 



306 HISTORY OF THE 

boundaries, recognizing and somewhat enlarging the bounds of the 
" carrying place " at Niagara, which they had granted under Eng- 
lish dominion. 

This treaty was the first ever made by the United States witli 
the Indians. 

At Fort Herkimer, on the Mohawk, in June, 1785, a treaty was 
held with the Oneidas and Tuscaroras, by George Clinton and 
other commissioners. For a consideration of eleven thousand five 
hundred dollars, those nations ceded to the State of New York, 
the land lying between the Unadilla and Chenango rivers, south of 
a fine drawn east and west between those streams, and north of 
the Pennsylvania line, &c. 

On the 12th of September, 1788, the Onondagas, by a treaty at 
Fort Stanwix, ceded to the State of New York, all their territory, 
saving a reservation around their chief village. It was stipulated 
that the Onondagas should enjoy forever, the right of fishing and 
hunting in the territory thus relinquished. The " Salt Lake," and 
the land around the same for one mile, was to remain forever for 
the common use of the State of New York, and the Onondagas, 
for the purpose of making salt, and not to be disposed of for other 
objects. The consideration was a thousand French crowns in 
hand, two hundred pounds value in clothing; and a perpetual 
annuity of five hundred dollars. Upon a full confirmation of the 
treaty, in 1790, the state gave as a gratuity, an additional five 
hundred dollars. 

On the 22d of September 178S, the Oneidas, who had before 
ceded a part of their lands, made an additional cession, including all 
their lands except a small reservation for themselves, and another 
for the Brothortown Indians, which they had previously given 
them. The consideration was two thousand dollars in hand, two 
i thousand dollars in clothing, one thousand dollars in provisions, 
five hundred dollars to build a grist mill on their reservation; and 
a perpetual annuity of five hundred dollars. 

By a treaty at Albany, in 1789, the Cayugas ceded to the State 
of New York all their lands, saving a reservation of one hundred 
square miles exclusive of the waters of Cayuga lake, about which 
the reservation was located. The consideration was five hundred 
dollars in hand; an agreement to pay one thousand five hundred 
and twenty-five dollars, in June following; and a perpetual annuity 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 307 

of five hundred dollars. Upon the final confinnation of the treaty, 
the State paid the Cayugas as a gratuity, one thousand dollars. 

In 1793, the Onondagas ceded to the state some portions of their 
reservation. The consideration was four hundred dollars in hand, 
and a perpetual annuity of four hundred dollars. 

On the 29th of March, 1797, the Mohawks, who had mostly 
fled to Canada during the Revolution, by their agents, Capt. Joseph 
Brant and Capt. John Deserontyon, rehnquished to the State of 
New York all claims to lands within the state, for the sum of one 
thousand dollars, and six hundred dollars in the form of a fee for 
ti'avehng expenses, &c. advanced to the above named agents. 

Numerous treaties and cessions of reservations followed, with 
the five easterly nations of the confederacy, but the cessions that 
have been noticed embraced the great body of their lands. In all 
these cessions the Indians reserved the right of fishing and hunting, 
•ind stipulated to lend their assistance in keeping off intruders upon 
the lands. 

A treaty was held at Canandaigua on the 11th of September. 
1794, between the United States and the Six Nations — Timothy 
Pickering acting in behalf of the United States. The object of 
President Washington in ordering this treaty, was to remove some 
existing causes of complaint, and establish a firm and permanent 
friendship with the Indians. These two objects were consummated. 
It was stipulated on the part of the United States that the Indians 
should be protected in the free enjoyment of their reservations, 
until such times as they chose to dispose of them to the United States. 
This had reference to the reservations east of the Massachusetts 
pre-emption line. At this treaty, the boundaries of the lands of the 
Senecas were defined, as including all lands west of Phelps and 
Gorham's Purchase, in this state, excepting the carrying place upon 
the Niagara river. "In consideration of the peace and friendship 
hereby established, and of the engagements entered into by the 
Six Nations; and because the United States desire with humanity 
and kindness to contribute to their comfortable support, and to 
render the peace and friendship hereby established strong and 
perpetual," the United States delivered to the Six Nations ten 
thousand dollars worth of goods, and for the same consideration, 
and with a view to promote the future welfare of the Six Nations 
and of their Indian friends aforesaid, the United States added 
S3000 to the -1^1,500 previously allowed them by an article date<l 



308 HISTORY OF THE 

23d, April, 1792, (which $1,500 was to be expended annually m 
purchasing clothing, domestic animals, and implements of hus- 
bandry, and for encouraging useful artificers, to reside in their 
villages,) making in the whole $4,500, the whole to be expended 
yearly in purchasing clothing, &c. as just mentioned, under the 
direction of the Superintendant appointed by the President. 

"Lest the firm peace and friendship now established should be 
interrupted by the misconduct of individuals, the United States and 
Six Nations agree that, for injuries done by individuals on either 
side, no private revenge or retaliation shall take place; but, instead 
thereof, complaint shall be made by the party injured to the other, 
and such prudent measures shall then be pursued as shall be neces- 
sary to preserve our peace and friendship, until the Legislature (or 
the great Council of the United States) shall make other equitable 
provisions for the purpose. 

"A note in the treaty says: — 'It is clearly understood by the 
parties to this treaty, that the annuity stipulated in the sixth article 
is to be applied to the benefit of such of the Six Nations, and of 
their Indian friends united with them aforesaid, as do or shall reside 
within the boundaries of the United States; for the United States 
do not interfere with nations, tribes, or families of Indians else- 
where resident.' " 

The state of New York, by its legislature, in 1781, resolved to 
raise forces to recruit the army of the United States. The period 
of enlistment was fixed at three years, or until the close of the war, 
and the faith of the State was pledged that each soldier who enlisted 
and served his time according to his enlistment, should receive six 
hundred acres of land as soon after the close of the war as the 
land could be surveyed. 

On the 25th of July, 1782, the legislature of the state passed 
another act, setting apart a certain district of country, described 
therein, to meet its engagements contained in the first mentioned 
act. The district so set apart, contained the territory now included 
in the counties of Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, Cortland, the south- 
west part of Oswego, the north part of Tompkins, the east part of 
Wayne, and small parts of Steuben and Yates; containing, besides, 
the reservations afterwards made therein by the Indians, one 
million, six hundred and eighty thousand acres. 

On the 28th day of February, 1789, a third act was passed by 
the legislature, appropriating the lands devoted to the payment of 
ihe Revolutionarv soldiers; the Indian title to which, had at length 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 301 

been extinguished by treaties with the Onondagas and Cayugas; 
which was soon after surveyed into townships, and those townships 
subdivided into lots of six hundred acres each: the state of New 
York thus redeemed its pledge given to the Revolutionary soldiers 
by the act of July 25th, 1782. 

Although the military tract may truly be considered a proud and 
splendid monument of the gratitude of the state of New York to 
her Revolutionary heroes; the soldiers, whose patriotic valor earned 
the full reward, in many cases, realized but little from the bounty 
of their country; as many of the patents for six hundred acres of 
excellent land, were sold as late as ten years after the close of the 
war at from eight to thirty dollars each. 

It has been already indicated that at the close of the Revolution, 
in 1783, settlement had not advanced beyond the lower valley of 
the Mohawk. In May, 1784, Hugh White, with his family, 
advanced beyond the then bounds of civilization, located at what 
is now Whitestown, near Utica. In 1786, a considerable settle- 
ment had been made there. In the same year that Whitestown 
was settled, James Dean, who had acted as an Indian agent during 
the war, settled upon a tract of land given him by the Indians, near 
Rome. In 1784, the county of Tryon had its name changed to 
Montgomery, its citizens preferring the name of a Revolutionary 
patriot, to that of an English colonial governor. In 1786, a Mr. 
Webster became the first white settler of the territory now com- 
prised in the county of Onondaga. In 1788, Asa Danforth and 
Comfort Tyler located at Onondaga Hollow. In 1793, John L. 
Hardenbergh settled at what was for many years called "Hard Mi- 
bergh's Corners," — now the village of Auburn. In 1789, James 
Bennet and John Harris settled upon opposite sides of the Cay- 
uga lake, and established a ferry. These primitive beginnings will 
however, best be indicated in sketches that will follow of some 
relations of early adventurers. 



310 HISTORY OF THE 

GLIMPSES OF WESTERN NEW YORK AFTER THE REVOLUTION. 



Note. — [The author at this point, to connect the chain of events as nearly as possible 
in chronological order, will avail himself of the preceding portion of narratives he has 
had from some of the earliest adventurers to the regions of Western New York; reser- 
ving for their order of time, the remainder. Since he commenced the preparation of 
this work, he has had interviews with a large number, who yet survive to tell the story 
of their wilderness advents. As far as consistent with a brevity which it is necessary to 
observe, he will endeavor to preserve that interest in the narratives, which the relators 
in their own language and manner, could alone impart to them.] 

Silas Hopkins, of Lewiston, Niagara county, started from New 
Jersey, in the summer of 1787, to assist his father in driving a 
drove of cattle to Niagara. Twelve or thirteen other young men 
came along, to assist in driving the cattle, and to see the country. 
Party came to Newton Point, thence to Horse Heads, Catherine's 
Town at the head of Seneca lake, Kanadesaega, Canandaigua, and 
from thence upon the Indian trail via Canavi^agus, the "Great 
Bend of the Tonewanta," Tonavv^anda Indian village, to Niagara. 
Route up the Susquehannah, to Tioga, was principally in the track 
of Sullivan's army; after that almost wholly upon Indian trails. 
Saw the last white inhabitant at Newtown Point. There were a 
few Indians at Catherine's Town, and among them the old squaw 
that is named in accounts of Sullivan's expedition. At this period, 
nine tenths of the settlers upon the frontiers in Canada, were 
Butler's Rangers. They had all got lands from the British 
government, two years supply of provisions, and were otherwise 
favored. The New Jersey drovers sold their cattle principally to 
them, and to the garrisons at Queenston and Niagara. 

"I came out twice the next summer with my father upon the 
same business. Upon one of these occasions, I went with my 
father to the residence of Col. Butler near Newark, (Niagara.) 
He was then about fifty five or sixty years old; had a large, pretty 
well cultivated farm; was living a quiet farmer's life. He was 
hospitable and agreeable, and I could hardly realize that he had 
been the leader of the Rangers. 

"In all our journeyings in those early days, we were well 
treated by the Indians. They had a custom of levying a tribute 
upon all drovers, by selecting a beeve from each drove as they 
passed through their principal towns. This they regarded as an 
equivalent for a passage through their territories; and the drovers 
found it the best way to submit without murmuring. At Geneva, 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 311 

there was an Indian trader named Poudrey, and another by the 
name of La Berge. There were several other whites there; they 
were talking of putting up a building. We happened to be at 
Canandaigua at a treaty. Phelps and Gorham bought several head 
of cattle of my father, to butcher for the Indians. When I went 
to Canada the first time, Gov. Simcoe was residing at 'Navy Hall,' 
near old Fort George. He was esteemed as a good Governor, and 
good man. 

"In 1789, on one of our droving excursions there was an 
unusual number of drovers collected at Lewiston. We clubbed 
together and paid the expenses of a treat to the Indians, — gave 
a benefit. They were collected there from Tonawanda, Butfalo, 
Tuscarora, and some from Canada. There were two or three; 
hundred of them; they gave a war-dance for our amusement. 
We had as guests, officers from Fort Niagara. The Indians were 
very civil. After the dance, rum was served out to them, upon 
which they became very merry, but committed no outrage. We 
had a jolly time of it, and I remember that among our number was 
a minister, who enjoyed the thing as well as any of us. 

"In 1790, after I had sold a drove of cattle at Lewiston, (to go 
over the river, and at Fort Niagara,) I met with John Street, the 
father of the late Samuel Street, of Chippewa, C. W. He then 
kept a trading establishment at Fort Niagara. He was going to 
Massachusetts, and said he should like my company through the 
wilderness, as far as Geneva. Waiting a few days, and he not 
getting ready, I started without him. He followed in a few days, 
and was murdered at a spring, near the Ridge Road, a mile west 
of Warren's. The murderers were supposed to be Gale and 
Hammond. Gale lived near Goshen, in this State. I knew his 
father, a Col. Gale. Hammond had been living on the Delaware 
river. They were arrested in Canada, by authority of the 
commanding officer at Fort Niagara; sent to Quebec for trial; 
Hammond turned King's evidence, divulged the whole affair, 
charging the offence principally upon Gale, but made his escape. 
Gale was afterwards discharged. When I came up the next 
season, I camped at the spring. Some fragments of Mr. Street's 
clothes were hanging upon the bushes. His body had been 
discovered by some travelers, stopping at the spring; their dog 
brought to them a leg with a boot upon it. His friends in Canada, 
gathered up fragments of the body, and carried them home for 
burial. He was robbed of a considerable sum of money." 

Judge Hopkins remarked at this point in his narrative, that the 
fact having become generally known that drovers with considerable 
sums of money, and emigrants to Canada, were every few days 
passing on the "Great Trail from the Susquehannah to Niagara," 
robbers had been attracted to it. It was soon enough after the 



312 HISTORY OF THE 

close of the border wars, to have remaining upon the outskirts of 
civilization, men fitted to prowl around the wilderness path, and 
solitary camp of the traveler. 

" My father being at Niagara, on one occasion, a letter was sent 
to him by Col. Hollenbeck who was on the Susquehannah, warning 
him against starting on his return journey alone, as he was satisfied 
that a couple of desperadoes, in his neighborhood were intending 
to waylay him somewhere on the trail. He handed the letter to 
the commandant at Fort Niagara; a couple of men soon made 
their appearance in the neighborhood answering the description of 
Col. Hollenbeck. They were arrested and detained at the gar- 
rison until my father had time to reach the settlements on the 
Susquehannah. 

"When but sixteen years of age, my father had some business in 
Canada that made it necessary to send me there from N. Jersey. 
I came through on horseback, the then usual route. I encamped 
the last night of my journey, on Millard's branch of the Eighteen- 
milecreek, about a mile above where it crosses the Chestnut Ridge, 
five miles east of Lockport. In the morning, my hoppled horse 
having gone a short distance off, I went for him, and on my way 
stumbled upon a silver mounted saddle and bridle, and a little far- 
ther on lay a dead horse that had been killed by a blow on the 
head with a tomahawk. I carried the saddle and bridle to Queens- 
ton, where they were recognized as those of a traveler who had 
a few days before come down from Detroit, on his way to New 
York, Nothing more was ever known of the matter." 

In narrating this, the Judge remarks that the howling of the 
wolves in the Tonawanda swamp, all night, deprived him of sleep. 
A boy, sixteen years old, alone far away from civilization; the 
howling of the wolves, his forest lullaby; the relics of a murdered 
traveler, presented to him in the morning! He acknowledges that 
he left his camping ground with less delay than usual. 

"I spent most of the summer of 1788, at Lewiston, purchasing 
furs. I bought principally, beaver, otter, muskrat, mink. The 
Indian hunting grounds for these animals, were the marshes along 
the Ridge Road, the bays of the Eighteen, Twelve, and Fourmile- 
creeks. The marsh where I now live, (six miles east of Lewiston,} 
was then, most of the year a pond, or small lake. The only 
white inhabitant at Lewiston, then was Middaugh. He kept a 
tavern — his customers, the Indians, and travelers on their way to 
Canada. I carried back to New Jersey, about four hundred dollars 
worth of furs, on pack horses. At that period, furs were plenty. 
I paid for bearer, from four to six shillings; for otter, about the 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 313 

same; for mink and muskrat, four cents. There were a good 
many bears, wolves, and wild-cats; but a few deer. 

"Immediately after the defeat of St. Clair, the Indians were very 
insolent and manifested much hostility to the whites. 

"In 1778, or '9, I was returning from Niagara, to New Jersey, 
in company with a dozen or fifteen men. When we arrived upon 
the Genesee river, wc found a white settler there — Gilbert 
Berry;* — he had arrived but a few days before with his wife and 
wife's sister; had made a temporary shelter, and had the body of a 
log house partly raised. He had tried to raise it with the help of 
Indians, and failed. We stopped and put it up for him. The next 
day, we found at the outlet of the Honeoye, a settler just arrived 
by the name of Thayer. He had logs ready for a house, but had 
no neighbors to help him. We stopped and raised his house.'" 

The narrator of these early events is now seventy-five years old; 
his once vigorous and hardy constitution, is somewhat broken by 
age, but his mental faculties are unimpaired. In the war of 1812, 
he was early upon the frontier, as a Colonel of militia, and has 
well filled many public stations. He was the first .ludge of 
Niagara, after Erie was set off". 



JoHiv Gould, Esq. of Cambria, Niagara county, came from New 
Jersey in 1788, as a drover; came by Newton, Painted Post, Little 
Beard's village. Great Bend of Tonawanda, &c. — stopped with 
drove at Little Beard's village over night. In the morning. Little 
Beard pointed out a fine ox, and an Indian boy shot him down with 
a bow and arrow. This was the usual tribute, mentioned by Judge 
Hopkins. " The Great Bend of the Tonnewanta," was a well 
known camping ground for Butler's Rangers, in their border war 
excursions, and after emigration to Canada; for early drovers, and 
other travellers. 

" Col. Hunter, was then in command at Fort Niagara. Our cat- 
tle and pack horses were ferried across to Newark in batteaux and 
Schenectady boats. Nothing then at Newark, (Niagara village,) 
but an old ferry house and the barracks that had been occupied by 
Butler's Rangers. The Massaguea Indians were numerous then 
in Canada. They had no fixed habitations; migrated from camping 
ground to camping ground, in large parties; their principal camping 
grounds Niagara and Queenston. There were their fishing grounds. 
Sometimes there would be five or six hundred encamped at 

* Gilbert Berry was an Indian trader. After his death, his widow kept a public 
house, early, and long known, as " Mrs. Berr}''s," at Avon. His two daughters are 
Mrs. George Hosmer of Avon, and Mrs. E. C. Hickox, of Buffalo. 



314 HISTORY OF THE 

Niagara. They were small in stature, gay, lively, filthy; and 
much addicted to drunkenness. 

" We sold our cattle principally to Butler's Rangers. They 
were located mostly at the Falls, along the Four and Twelve Mile 
Creeks. Oxen brought as high as £50, cows £20. 

" In June, after I arrived, I was at Fort Niagara, and witnessed 
the celebration of King George's birth day: — there was firing of 
cannon, horse racing, &c. The Tuscarora Indians were there, in 
high glee. It was upon this occasion that I first saw Benjamin 
Barton, sen. 

" Butler's Rangers had taken a sister of my mother's captive, 
upon the Susquehannah. She afterwards became the wife of 
Capt. Fry, of the Mohawk, who had gone to Canada during the 
Revolution. She had induced my mother and step father, to 
emigrate to Canada in 1787. I found them located upon the Six 
Mile creek. At the time my aunt was taken prisoner, there were 
taken with her several children of another sister: their names were 
Vandcrlip. 

"When I came through in '88, I saw no white inhabitant after 
leaving Newton, till I arrived at Fort Niagara. At Newton there 
was one unfinished log house. ' Painted Post ' was at the junction 
of Indian trails. It was a post, striped red and white. 

" Along in '88, '90, eagles were plenty on Niagara river and 
shores of lake Ontario. Ravens were plenty; when they left, the 
crows came in. Black birds were a pest to the early settlers; 
they seemed to give way to the crows. The crows are great 
pirates. I think they robbed the nests of the black birds. There 
used to be myriads of the caween duck upon the river. In the 
breaking up of the ice in the spring, they would gather upon large 
cakes of ice, at Queenston, and sailing down to the lake, return 
upon the wing, to repeat the sport; their noise at times would be 
almost deafening." 

"In '99, on my return to New Jersey, I went by Avon, 
Canandaigua, &c. Widow Berry was keeping tavern at Avon; 
settlers were getting in between there and Canandaigua; there 
were a few buildings in Canandaigua; a few log buildings at 
Geneva. On my return the next year, emigration was brisk; the 
military tract, near Seneca lake was settling rapidly." 

Mr. Gould is now 78 years old; vigorous; but little broken by 
age; relaxing but slightly in an enterprise and industry, that has 
been crowned with a competency, which he is enjoying in the 
midst of his children, grand children, and great grand children. 



John Mountpleasant, a native of Tuscarora, is now sixty- 
eight years old. His father was Captain Mountpleasant. of the 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 315 

British army; at one period commandant of Fort Niagara; his 
mother was an Oneida; emigrated to Canada during the Revolution, 
and afterwards came to Tuscarora. His father and mother, 
residing for two years at Mackinaw; that was his birth place, 
although almost his entire life has been spent at Tuscarora. He 
had a sister, who became the wife of Capt. Chew, of the British 
army. Capt. Mountpleasant was ordered to Montreal when his 
children were quite young; he was not entirely unmindful of them; 
occasionally sent them presents. 

" The earliest white people I can recollect, were the English at 
Fort Niagara, and a small guard they used to keep at Lewiston, 
to guard the portage. When I was a boy, the portage used to 
employ five or six teams. I remember well when the early 
emigrants used to come through on the trail, going to Canada, 
Their children were frequently carried in baskets, strung across 
the backs of horses." Qt/^ ^^e his account of Brant's Mohawk 
village on Ridge Road. "The Middaughs, came from North River; 
when they first came they occupied one of the old houses left by 
the Mohawks. Hank Huflf, and Hank Mills, were early at Lewis- 
ton. Huff had a Mohawk wife, and used to live in the house that 
Brant left. When I was a small boy, 1 used to go through to 
Genesee river, with my mother. There was Poudery at Tonna-' 
wanda, 'a white man' (Berry,) keeping a ferry over the Genesee 
river. 

"Deer were not plenty in this region, the wolves hunted them; 
driving them into the lake, they would wait until they were 
wearied with swimming, and catch them as they came on shore. 
In periods of deep snows and crusts, they used to make great 
havoc among them. As the wolves grew scarce, the deer became 
plenty. A strip of land between Ridge and lake, used to be a 
great resort for bears. Our best hunting grounds used to be off 
toward Genesee river. Secord was an early and successful white 
trapper in this region. Some Tuscarora hunters once killed a 
panther, in the marsh near Pekin. There were no crows until after 
the war of 1812. The bittern, was often seen about the marshes. 
The white owl used occasionally to make his appearance here. 
Flocks of swans were often seen about the Islands above the Falls. 

"When I was a boy, most of the marshes in Niagara county, 
were open ponds. I have been with my mother, picking cran- 
berries, in open marshes, where there was then but small bushes; 
now there are tamaracks, soft maples, black ash, &c. as large as 
my body. The beaver dams were in a good state of preservation 
as long as I can remember, — though then but few beaver left. I 
have taken salmon in Eighteen mile creek, where Lewiston road 



316 HISTORY OF THE 

crosses near Lockport, and below the Falls of the Oak Orchard, 
with my hands, three feet in length. 

" My mother's second husband was a white man named James 
Pemberton, who was taken prisoner at the same time that Jasper 
Parrish was. He was brought to Lewiston with the Mohawks. 
He remained with the Tuscaroras after the Mohawks went to 
Canada, and until his death. 

"I remember when the Indian family — Scaghtjecitors — hved at 
the creek at Black Rock that derives its name from them. They 
moved back to Seneca village, after the land was sold. One of the 
family was murdered at 'Sandy Town,' and robbed of twelve 
dollars. The murderers were never detected. 

"When I was a boy, two schooners used to come to Lewiston — 
armed, King's vessels — the 'Seneca,' and 'Onondaga.' There 
was another afterwards, called the 'Massasagua.' I used to see 
batteaux come up, taken out of the river, and conveyed over the 
Portage; manned by jolly Frenchmen, who used to sing, keeping 
time with their oars, as they came up the river. 

" For many years I followed the business of stocking rifles. I 
learned to do it from seeing Bill Antis do it at Canandaigua. For 
many years he stocked rifles for us without pay, being employed 
for that purpose by the government; afterwards we paid him half 
price. 

"I remember when Gov. Simcoe first came to Niagara. He had 
a thousand troops with him called 'Queen's Rangers.' They wore 
green uniform. Their barracks were at Queenston, — thence the 
ihe name." 

The narrator resides at Tuscarora with his sons, who are good 
farmers, educated and intelligent. His fine form would serve as a 
model for a sculpture. Tall, unbent by age; with a countenance, 
mild, benevolent, and expressive. 

Note. — The author is indebted to Judge Cook of Lewiston, for some additional par- 
ticulars which he adds to the brief narrative of John Mountpleasant. When James 
Pemberton, was brought a prisoner to Lewiston, it was decreed that ho should be burned 
at the stake, to revenge the death of some Mohawk warrior. Brant interested himself 
in saving him; proposed that he should be saved and adopted. He told the Indians 
that he was a man of fine proportions, (as he really was,) that he would become useful to 
them. He interested the squaws in behalf of the captive, by promising that some 
one of them should have hini for a husband. Managing to divert the attention of the 
Indians from their victim. Brant pointed out to Pemberton a way of escape, which he 
pursued with sufficient fleetness of foot, to enable him to reach Fort iViagara, where he 
was protected. The Indians had compelled Pemberton to collect the brush and dry 
wood for his own destruction. He was stripped naked — all was ready for the terrible 
sacrifice, when Brant's scheme in his behalf saved him. The place of the intended 
burning at the stake, is a small spot of level ground, between the dwelling of Seymour 
Scovell, Esq., and the Ferry. Pemberton pointed it out to Judge Cook, and told him 
the stof}- of his fortunate escape. He remained at Niagara until the peace of '83, then 
went toTuscarora and married the mother of John Mountpleasant. He died in 1806 
or '7. His children and grand children reside at Tuscarora. [See next page. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 317 

Thomas Butler, Esq. is a grandson of Col. John Butler, and 
resides upon the farm where his grandfather located after the 
Revolution, near Niagara, C. W. He is an associate Judge of the 
court of Queen's Bench. He was educated at Union College, 
Schenectady, residing there, in the family of the late Gov. Yates, 
who was his cousin. The author avails himself of a brief narrative 
he derived from him during a visit to his residence last summer, 
in search of some old manuscripts which had fallen into his hands as 
an attoi-ney for one of the early Pioneers of Western New York : 

"In 1797, during a vacation in college, I came home to Niagara. 
Joseph ElHcott, a surveyor named Thompson, and six or eight 
others, were just starting from Schenectady with batteaux, on their 
way to the Holland Purchase. I came in company with them. 1 
found Mr. Ellicott a very agreeable traveling companion. Our 
route was via Oswego, and lake Ontario. Mr. Ellicott's party 
landed at fort Niagara, their goods went to Lewiston, and from 
thence over the Portage, to Schlosser; thence to Buffalo. 

^'Col John Butler died in 1794. Was, up to the period of his 
death, superintendent of Indian affairs for Upper Canada; was a 
half pay Lieut. Colonel. His remains are buried upon his estate. 
He organized at Niagara the corps he commanded during the 
Revolution. Butler's Barracks were originly built for their use. 

"Col Claus died at Niagara seven or eight years ago. His two 
sons, John and Warren reside here now. Warren is an Attorney 
at law; at present, the Surrogate of the Niagara District. 

" When Gov. Simcoe came to Niagara he issued a proclamation 
to all those who, in the Revolution, had adhered to the 'United 
Empire, (thence the name, U. E. Loyalists,'*) to come and take 
possession of lands. The different corps that drew lands, were, 
Butler's Rangers, who drew their lands in this part of Canada; 
Jessup's Corps, who drew their lands in the lower portion of the 
upper province; Johnson's Greens, who drew their lands about the 
Bay Quinte. Jemima Wilkinson claimed to be a U. E. Loyalist, 



The first husband of the sister Mountpleasant speaks of, was a Capt. Elmer, of the 
U. S. army, stationed at Niag^ara. She Hved with him at the garrison — he acknowl- 
edged her as his wife — and when ordered to New-Orleans, and prohibited by his 
superior officer from taking her with him, the parting was one which gave evidence of 
strong affection. To use the language of one who knew her at that period: "she was 
a beautiful woman." After the separation, she became the wife of Capt. Chew, a 
British Indian Agent at Niagara. She died a few years since, at an advanced age. 
Her eldest son is now head chief of the Tuscaroras. 

* Judge Butler showed the author one of these deeds. It was one that had been 
given to Johnson Butler, for services as a Lieutenant in Butler's Rangers. The seal of 
white wax, would weigh three ounces. Each side is impressed with a die; the British 
coat of arms, &c. 



31,8 HISTORY OF THE 

and at one time came near deceiving Gov. Simcoe, and drawling a 
large tract of land.* 

" The travel over-land from Tioga to Niagara, on the great trail 
was very large, at one period. I have heard it observed that in 
winters, one party, on leaving their camp, would build up large fires 
for the accommodation of those who followed them; and in this 
reciprocal way, fires were kept burning at the camping grounds. 



In June, 1795, a French nobleman, La Rochefoucauld Liain- 
couRT, in company with others, who wished to sec a large Indian set- 
tlement, passed through Buffalo, on his way to the Seneca village, on 
Buffalo creek, which he describes as situated about four miles from 
Lake Erie. He mentions Farmers Brother as a distinguished Indi- 
an chief and warrior. He complains of unbi'idged streams, bad and 
difficult roads to the town, and was disappointed in not finding it as 
large as he expected; but says that for many miles wigwams were 
scattered either way along the creek. He observes that though 
the whole country was filled with " miry and pestilential swamps," 
the Indians were healthy. 

The following truthful sketch of Buffalo, as it actually appeared, 
but little more than half a century ago, to one who, perhaps, 
had visited the ancient and renowned capitals of the Old World, 
and had taken an adventurous journey in search of that novelty 
and freshness he no longer found there, will be interesting to all 
who can only know from such sources, the original condition in 
which the Pioneer settlers found the seats of now large and flour- 
ishing cities: 

" We at length arrived at the post on Lake Erie, which is a small 
collection of four or five houses, built about a quarter of a mile 
from the Lake. 

" We met some Indians on the road and two or three companies 
of whites. These encounters gave us great pleasure. In this vast 
wilderness, a fire still burning; the vestiges of a camp, the re- 
mains of some utensil which has served a traveller, excite sensations 
truly agreeable, and which arise only in these immense solitudes. 

" We arrived late at the inn, and after a very indifferent supper, 
were obliged to lay on the floor in our clothes. There was liter- 

* This was about the period of her difficulties with the early settlers on Seneca lake. 
She started for Canada, with a portion of her followers, got as far as Oswego, to embark 
on lake Ontario, and was met by the news that Gov. Simcoe had changed his mind, 
and refused to recognize her as a U. E. L. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE 319 

ally nothing in the house, neither furniture, rum, candles, nor milk. 
After much trouble the milk was procured from the neighbors, who 
were not as accommodating in the way of the rum and candles. 
At length some arriving from the other side of the river, we sea- 
soned our supper, as usual, with an appetite that seldom fails, and 
after passing a very comfortable evening, slept as soundly as we 
had done in the woods. 

'' Every thing at Lake Erie — by which name this collection of 
houses is called — is dearer than at any other place we visited, for the 
simple reason that there is no direct communication with any other 
poiat. Some were sick with fever in almost every house." 



Joshua Fairbanks resides at Lewiston. His first visit to 
western New York, was in the winter of 1791. He had been 
recently married to Miss Sophia Reed, the daughter of Col. Seth 
Reed, of the Revolutionary army, at Uxbridge, Massachusetts. 
Col. Reed had the winter previous moved his family to Geneva — 
or rather to where Geneva now is. In the winter of '91, Mr. F. 
set out with his wife, to join him. They were in a sleigh. The 
narrative of the journey is taken up after they had passed Whites- 
borough:— 

"Half way from Whitesborough to Onondaga Hollow, night 
overtook us, and fortunately, we found a settler who had just got 
in, and had a log house partly finished. There were some Indians 
at the house; the first that Mrs. F. had seen. I do not recollect 
the name of our obliging pioneer host; but he was the first settler 
between Whitesborough and Onondaga Hollow. We staid the 
next night at Onondaga Hollow. The only settler there was Gen. 
Danforth. Here Mrs. F. remarked that she thought there must 
have been others in the neighborhood, as there was a small dancing 
party at the General's that night. The next night we camped 
out; found the remains of an Indian tent; struck a fire; Mrs. F. 
cooked a supper, and we passed the night pretty comfortably. It 
was in February; snow from eighteen inches to two feet deep. 

Staid next night at Cayuga lake with Harris, who kept a 

ferry when the lake was not closed; we crossed on the ice. We 
arrived at Col. Reed's the next day." 

Mr. Fairbanks had brought along with him a few goods to trade 
with the Indians. He remained at Geneva with Col. Reed, until 
the fall of 1793. He has an old deed of two village lots in Geneva. 

It is dated in August, 1790. The grantor is Peter Bortle. 

Ryckman would seem to have been one of the proprietors of the ori- 
ginal village plot. The lot conveyed, was "91, on west side of Front 



320 HISTORY OF THE 

Street." The instrument is witnessed by Albert Ryckman and 
John Taylor. During tlie time of Mr. Fairbanks' residence at 
Geneva, a com"t was held — he thinks by Judge Cooper of Coopers- 
town.* It was then, says Mr. F. considered a good day's walk, 
or ride, to Canandaigua. The inhabitants that he recollects at 
Geneva, at that period, were: — Ezra Patterson, Thomas Sisson, 

the Reed family, Peter Bortle, Talmadge, Van Duzen, 

Benjamin Barton, Butler, Jackson, Dr. Adams; and 

Dr. Coventry, lived over the lake. Mr. Fairbanks has preserved 
an old Inll oi' a part of the goods he brought to Geneva. They 
were bought of - Reed &; Rice, Brooklield, Massachusetts." A 
few of the articles and prices are noted: — 

11 vds. Ratteen, 4s. pr. yd. 
30 '" Cotton Cord, ribbed, ."^s. 4d. 
7J " Cordiirov. 5s. 
63 " Shallooii, "Js. 4d. 
25 lbs. Bohea Tea, 2s. 8d. 

"About the 1st of September, 1793, 1 stai'ted with my wife, Giles 
Sisson, and William Butler, in a batteau; went down the Seneca 
river, Oswego river to Falls, where we had our batteau, goods, 
&c. to carry over a portage of one and a half miles; thence down 
to the British garrison at Oswego. The commanding officer, as 
ex-otficio, revenue inspector, searched our goods. There was one 
settler at the portage — Oswego Falls. There was one company 
of troops, and a small gun boat at Oswego — no settler, n 

'•We coasted up lake Ontario; going on shore and camping 
nights. We were seventeen days making the journey from Geneva 
to Queenston. The only person we saw on the route, from 
Oswego to Niagara, was William Hencher, at the month of Genesee 
river. We made a short call at Fort Niagara, reporting ourselves 
to the commanding othcer. He gave us a specimen of British 
civility, during the hold over period, after the Revolution. It was 
after a protracted dinner sitting, I should think. He asked me 
where I was going? I replied, to Chippewa. "Go along and be 

d d to you," was his laconic, verbal passport. There was then 

outside of the garrison, under its walls, upon the flatts, two houses. 
No tenement at Youngstown. 

••I landed at Queenston — went into a house, partly of logs, 
and partly framed, and commenced keeping tavern. There was 
then a road from Fort Niagara to Fort Erie. At Queenston, Han>- 
ilton had a good house built, the rest were small log huts." 

•Judje HowFTX thinks this Court was in June 1793: aiid says that the presiding 
Judcre was John SlossHobart, one of the Judges of the Supreme court of tliis State; 
(Rie of the Inrst three who were appointed Judges of that Court It was the first Court 
of Oyer and Terminer, &c. held in Ontario county. There was a grand jury sworn 
and charged, but no other business dono. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 321 

Mr. Fairbanks, remained at Queenston and Chippewa, until 1805. 
Mrs. Fairbanks names the circumstance, that while keeping the 
tavern at Queenston, they had as guests, Aaron Burr, and his 
daughter Theodosia, and her husband, Mr. Allison. The party 
traveled on horse back, attended by servants. It was upon their 
trip to Niagara Falls. 

"In 1794, 1 took passage on board of" a British armed schooner, 
at Fort Erie, commanded by Capt. Cowen. I wished to see the 
country; the vessel was going up to bring down a British engineer, 
who had been employed on some of the western posts. Went to 
Detroit; Col. England was there in command of a British regiment. 
On our return we entered the Maumee Bay and anchored off' the 
mouth of the Au Glaizc. It was soon after the battle of Wayne 
with the Indians. We saw many of the Indians who were in the 
fight. Taking advantage of the little knowledge I had of their 
language, I asked one of them, who I learned had retreated at a 
pretty early hour in the engagement, why he came away? Suiting 
the action to the word, he replied: — "Pop, pop, pop, — boo, woo, 
woo-o-o, oo, — whish, whish, — boo, woo! — kill twenty Indians one 
time; no good by d — n."* 

" The armed vessel upon which I took passage, and some few 
^un boats, constituted all the British armament then on the Lakas. 
1 think there was then no merchant vessel." 

Deacon Hinds Chamberlin, a venerable early Pioneer, aged 
eighty-three years, resides at Le Roy, Genesee county. He came 
to Avon in 1790. In 1789, previous to any settlement west of 
Avon, his brother-in-law, Isaac Scott, and family, and two other 
families, had settled at Scottsville. These, with William Hencher, 
were the first settlers west of Genesee river. 

"In 1792, I started from Scottsville with Jesse Beach and 
Reuben Heath; went up Allen's creek, striking the Indian trail 
from Canawagus, -wihere Le Roy now is. There was a beautiful 
Indian camping ground — tame grass had got in; we staid all night. 
Pursuing the trail the next morning, we passed the Great Bend of 
the Tonawanda, and encamped at night at Dunham's Grove; and 
the next night near Buffalo, We saw one whiteman — Poudery — 
at Tonawanda village. We arrived at the mouth of BufTalo creek 
the next morning. There was but one white man there, I think; 
his name was Winne, an Indian trader. His building stood first as 
you descend from the high ground. He had rum, whiskey, Indian 



* This, the reader will observe, was an imitation, as near as the Indian could make 
it, of the firing of small arms, of cannon, and the whizzing and bursting of bombs; — a 
specimen of the entertainment served up to the Indians bv " Mad Anthony." 
21 



322 HISTORY OF THE 

knives, trinkets, &c. His house was full of Indians; they looked 
at us with a good deal of curiosity. We had but a poor night's 
rest; the Indians were in and out all night, getting liquor. 

" Next day we went up the beach of the lake to mouth of Catta- 
raugus creek where we encamped; a wolf came down near our 
camp. We had seen many deer on our rout, during the day. The 
next morning we went up to Indian village; found "Black Joe's" 
house, but he was absent; he had however seen our tracks upon 
the beach of the lake, and hurried home to see what white people 
were traversing the wilderness. The Indians stared at us; Joe 
gave us a room where we should not be annoyed by Indian curi- 
osity, and we stayed with him over night. All he had to spare us in 
the way of food was some dried venison. He had liquor, Indian 
goods, and bought furs. Joe treated us with so much civility, that 
we stayed with him till near noon. There was at least an hundred 
Indians and Squaws, gathered to see us. Among the rest, there 
was sitting in Joe's house, an old Squaw, and a young dehcate 
looking white girl, with her, dressed like a Squaw. I endeavored 
to find out something about her history, but could not. I think 
she had lost the use of our language. She seemed not inclined 
to be noticed. 

'• With an Indian guide that Joe selected for us, we started upon 
the Indian trail for Presque Isle. Wayne was then fighting 
Indians. Our Indian guide often pointed to the west, saying, 'bad 
Indians there.' 

"Between Cattaraugus and Erie, I shot a black snake, a racer, 
with a white ring around his neck. He was in a tree, twelve feet 
from the ground, his body wound around the tree. He measured 
seven feet and three inches. 

"At Presque Isle, (Erie,) we found neither whites nor Indians; 
all was solitary. There were some old French brick buildings, 
wells, block houses, &c. going to decay; eight or ten acres cleared 
land. On the peninsular, there was an old brick house, forty or 
fifty feet square; the peninsular was covered with cranberries. 

"After staying there one night, we went over to La Boeuf, about 
sixteen miles distant, pursuing an old French I'oad. Trees had 
grown up in it, but the track was distinct. Near La Boeuf, we 
came upon a company of men, who were cutting out the road to 
Presque Isle; a part of them were soldiers, and a part Pennsyl- 
vanians. At La Boeuf, there was a garrison of soldiers — about 
one hundred. There were several white families there, and a 
store of goods. 

Myself and companions were in pursuit of land. By a law of 
Pennsylvania, such as built a log house, and cleared a few acres of 
land, acquired a pre-emptive right; the right of purchase, at £5 
per one hundred acres. We each of us made a location near 
Presque Isle. 

On our return to Presque Isle, from Le Boeuf, we found there 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 323 

Col. Seth Reed and his family. They had just arrived. We 
stopped and helped him build some huts; set up crotches; laid poles 
across, and covered with the bark of the cucumber tree. At first 
the Colonel had no floors; afterwards he indulged in the luxury of 
floors made by laying down strips of bark. James Baggs, and 
Giles Sisson came on with Col. Reed. I remained for a considera- 
ble time in his employ. It was not long before eight or ten other 
families came in. 

"On our return we again staid at Buffalo over night, with 
Winne. There was at the time a great gathering of hunting 
parties of Indians there. Winne took from them all their knives 
and tomahawks, and then selling them liquor, they had a great 
carousal. 



The author finds the following incorporated in the pamphlet of 
Mr. Williamson to which reference will be made in a subsequent 
page. It is there said to be "an account of a journey of a gentle- 
man into the Genesee country, in February, 1792." 

"On the 15th February 1792, I left Albany, on my route to the 
Genesee river, but the country was thought so remote, and so very 
little known, that I could not prevail on the owner of the stage to 
engage farther than Whitestown, a new settlement on the head of 
the Mohawk, 100 miles from Albany. The road as far as Whites- 
town had been made passable for wagons, but from that to the 
Genesee river, was little better than an Indian path, sufficiently 
opened to allow a sled to pass, and some impassable streams 
bridged. At Whitestown, I was obliged to change my carriage, 
tlie Albany driver getting alarmed for himself and horses, when he 
found that for the next 100 miles we were not only obliged to take 
provisions for ourselves, but for our horses, and blankets for our 
beds. On leaving Whitestown we found only a few straggling 
huts, scattered along the path, from 10 to 20 miles from each 
other; and they affording nothing but the conveniency of fire, and 
a kind of shelter from the snow. On the evening of the third 
day's journey from Whitestown, we were very agreeably surprised 
to find ourselves on the east side of Seneca Lake, which we found 
perfectly open, free of ice as in the month of June; the evening 
was pleasant and agreeable, and what added to our surprise and 
admiration was to see a boat and canoe plying on the lake. After 
having passed from New York, over 360 miles of country com- 
pletely frozen, the village of Geneva, though then only consisting 
of a few log-houses, after the dreary wilderness we had passed 
through, added, not a little to the beauty of the prospect; we 
forded the outlet of the lake, and arrived safe at Geneva. 

" The situation of this infant settlement on the banks of a sheet 
of water 44 miles long, by 4 to 6 wide, daily navigated by small 



324 HISTORY OF THE 

craft and canoes, in the month of February, was a sight as grati- 
fying as unexpected. It appeared that the inhabitants of this 
delightful country, would by the slight covering of the snow on 
the ground, have all the convenience of a northern winter; and by 
the waters of the lake being free from ice, have all the advantages 
of this inland navigation, a combination of advantages perhaps not 
to be experienced in any other country in the world. 

"From Geneva to Canandarqua the road is only the Indian path 
a little improved, the first five miles over gentle swellings of land, 
interspersed with bottoms seemingly very rich, the remainder of 
the road to Canandarqua, the county town, 16 miles, was the 
greatest part of the distance through a rich heavy timbered land; 
on this road there were only two families settled. Canandarqua, 
the county town, consisted of two small frame houses and a few 
huts, surrounded with thick woods; the few inhabitants received 
me with much hospitality, and I found abundance of excellent 
venison. From Canandarqua to the Genesee river, 26 miles, it is 
almost totally uninhabited, only four families residing on the road; 
the country is beautiful and very open, in many places the openings 
are free of all timber, appearing to contain at least 2 or 300 acres 
beautifully variegated with hill and dale; it seemed that by only 
enclosing any of them with a proportionable quantity cf timbered 
land, an inclosure might be made not inferior to the parks in 
England. At the Genesee river I found a small Indian store and 
tavern; the river was not then frozen over, and so low as to be 
fordable. Upon the whole, at this time, there were not any 
settlements of any consequence in the whole of the Genesee 
country; that established by the Friends on the west side of the 
Seneca lake, was the most considerable, consisting of about forty 
families. At this period the number of Indians in the adjoining 
country was so great, when compared with the few white 
inhabitants who ventured to winter in the country, that I found 
them under serious apprehensions for their safety. Even in this 
state of nature, the county of Ontario shews every sign of future 
respectability; no man has put the plough in the ground, without 
being amply repaid, and through the mildness of the winter the 
cattle brought into the country the year before on very slender 
provision for their subsistence, were thriving well; the clearing of 
land for spring crops is going on with spirit; I also found the 
settlers abundantly supplied with venison." 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 325 



CHAPTER IL 



LAND TITLES PHELPS AND GORHAM S PURCHASE EARLY EVENTS. 



James I, King of Great Britain, in the year 1620, granted to the 
Plymouth Company, a tract of country denominated New England; 
this ti'act extended several degrees of latitude north and south, and 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean east and west. A charter for 
the government of a portion of this territory, granted by CharlesI, 
in 1628, was vacated in 1684, but a second charter was granted by 
William and Mary in 1691. The territory comprised in this sec- 
ond charter extended on the Atlantic ocean from north latitute 42° 
2' to 44° 15', and from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean. 

Charles I, in 1663, granted to the Duke of York and Albany, 
the province of New York, including the present state of New- 
Jersey. The tract thus granted extended from a fine twenty miles 
east of the Hudson river, westward rather indefinitely, and from 
the Atlantic ocean north to the south line of Canada, then a French 
province. 

By this collision of description, each of those colonies, (after- 
wards states,) laid claim to the jurisdiction as well as to pre-emption 
right of the same land, being a tract sufficiently large to form 
several states. The State of New York, however, in 1781, and 
Massachusetts, in 1785, ceded to the United States all their rights, 
either of jurisdiction or proprietorship, to all the territory lying 
west of a meridian line run south from the westerly bend of lake 
Ontario. Although the nominal amount in controversy, by these 
acts, was much diminished, it still left some nineteen thousand 
square miles of territory in dispute, but this controversy was finally 
settled by a convention of Commissioners appointed by the parties, 
held at Hartford, Conn., on the 16th day of December, 1786. 



326 HISTORY OF THE 

According to the stipulations entered into by the convention, 
Massachusetts ceded to the state of New York all her claim to the 
government, sovereignty and jurisdiction of all the territory lying 
west of the present east line of the state of New York; and New 
York ceded to Massachusetts the pre-emption right, or fee of the 
land subject to the title of the natives, of all that part of the state 
of New York lying west of a line, beginning at a point in the north 
line of Pennsylvania, 82 miles west of the north-east corner of 
said state, and running from thence due north through Seneca 
lake, to lake Ontario; excepting and reserving to the state of New 
York, a strip of land east of and adjoining the eastern bank of 
Niagara river, one mile wide, and extending its whole length. 
The land, the pre-emption right of which was thus ceded, amounted 
to about six millions of acres. 

In April, 1788, Massachusetts contracted to sell to Nathaniel 
Gorham of Charlestown, Middlesex county, and Oliver Phelps of 
Granville, Hampshire county of said state, their pre-emption right 
to all the lands in Western New York amounting to about six mil- 
lion acres, for the sum of one million dollars, to be paid in three 
annual instalments, for which a kind of scrip, Massachusetts had 
issued, called consohdated securities, was to be received, which was 
then in market much below par.* 

In July 1788, Messrs. Gorham and Phelps purchased of the 
Indians, by treaty, at a convention held at Buffalo, the Indian title 
to about 2,600,000 acres of the eastern part of their purchase from 
Massachusetts. This purchase of the Indians being bounded west 
by a line beginning at a point in the north hne of the state of 
Pennsylvania due south of the corner or point of land, made by the 
confluence of the Kanahasgwaicon (Cannaseraga) creek with the 
waters of Genesee river; thence north on said meridian line to the 
corner or point at the confluence aforesaid; thence northwardly 
along the waters of said Genesee river to a point two miles north of 
Kanawageras (Cannewagus) village; thence running due west 
twelve miles; thence running northwardly, so as to be twelve miles 
distant from the westward bounds of said river, to the shore of lake 
Ontario. 



* It must be understood that Messrs. Gorham and Phelps although acting in their own 
names only, in this transaction, were merely the representatives of a company, consist- 
ing of themselves and a number of others, who had formed an association for the pur- 
chase of these lauds. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 337 

On the 21st day of November, 1788, the state of Massachusetts 
conveyed and forever quitclaimed to N. Gorham and O. Phelps, 
their heirs and assigns forever, all the right and title of said state 
to all that tract of country of which Messrs. Phelps and Gorham 
had extinguished the Indian title. This tract, and this only, has 
since been designated as the " Phelps and Gorham Purchase." 

According to the original plan of the proprietors the tract was, 
as soon as practicable, surveyed into townships about six miles 
square, and those townships subdivided into lots of different sizes; 
and so promptly was the execution of the design commenced, that 
through the industry and perseverance of Mr. Phelps, the acting 
and efficient conductor of the whole enterprise, Capt. William 
Walker, a surveyor and his assistants, arrived on the territory 
about the time the sale was perfected, to wit., in the fall of 1788, 
and surveyed several township lines before the inclemency of the 
winter weather put a stop to their labors. 

The proprietors offered this tract for sale by townships or parts 
of townships; and during the summer of 1789, several families set- 
tled on, and near, the site of the old Indian village at Canandaigua; 
at Bloomfield, and on Boughton Hill now in the town of Victor. 
During this season the first productions of the earth were brought 
forth by the cultivation of Vs^hite people, and the first wheat was 
sown on the tract. vSo rapid were the sales of the proprietors that 
before the 18th day of November, 1790, they had disposed of about 
fifty townships, which were mostly sold by whole townships or 
large portions of townships, to sundry individuals and companies of 
farmers and others, formed for that purpose. On the 18th day of 
November, 1790, they sold the residue of their tract, (reserving 
two townships only,) amounting to upwards of a million and a 
quarter acres of land, to Robert Morris of Philadelphia, who soon 
sold the same to Sir William Pultney, an English gentleman, who 
appointed Capt. Charles Williamson his general and resident agent, 
to superintend his interest in, and dispose of the lands by sale in 
small or large quantities. These lands lay somewhat scattered 
over Phelps and Gorham's purchase, although mostly on the south 
and north parts. This property, or such parts of it as was unsold 
at the time of the decease of Sir William, together with other 
property which he purchased in his lifetime in its vicinity, is now 
called the " Pultney Estate." 



328 HISTORY OF THE 



OLIVER PHELPS. 



i 



Oliver Phelps, was a native of Windsor, Conn, and soon after 
his majority became a citizen of SufReld, Massachusetts. At the 
commencement of the revolutionary war, he took an active part and 
in various capacities, remained with the American army to its close. 
It was at this period that he became acquainted with Robert Morris; 
Mr. Phelps being superintendant of army purchases, for Massachu- 
setts, it led to an acquaintance with Mr. Morris, who as will be 
seen was the chief financier of the Revolution. He removed with 
his family, to Canandaigua Ontario county, in March, 1802, and 
resided there until the period of his death, in 1809. He was 
appointed first Judge of the county of Ontario, and elected a 
member of Congress from his district. An inscription upon his 
tomb stone, closes as follows: — 

" Enterprise, Industry, and Temperance, cannot alwaj's secure success, but the fruits 
of those virtues, will be felt by society." 

Like his revolutionary acquaintance, and afterwards co-operator 
in the purchase and settlement of Western New York, Robert 
Morris, he was destined to close his life in the midst of reverses. 
His business became much extended; his purchase of large tracts 
of wild land, had extended even to Georgia and Mississippi. In 
1795, he estimated his property at nearly one million of dollars, — 
his debts at less than eighty-five thousand; and yet at his death, in 
1809, he was much embarrassed; what was saved from his estate, 
being the result of good management with those upon whom its 
administration devolved. A memorandum in his own hand writing 
would show that he lost over three hundred and thirty thousand 
dollars, by bad debts and bad titles. Among the early Pioneers of 
Western New York, who knew him well, it is common to hear him 
alluded to in terms of respect and esteem; to hear the expression 
of sincere regret for the misfortunes attending his last years, 
mingled with their recollections of early events. 

He left one son and one daughter. His son Leicester Phelps, 
after graduating at Yale College, assumed the name of Oliver 
Leicester Phelps. He died in 1813, leaving seven children, of 
whom the present Judge OUver Phelps of Canandaigua — a worthy 
descendant of his Pioneer ancestor, — is one. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 329 

By the side of that of her husband, in the village cemetery, at 
Canandaigua, is the tomb stone of "Mary, wife of Oliver Phelps, 
and daughter of Zachariah and Sarah Seymour; — died 13th Sep- 
tember, 1826, aged seventy four years." It is said of her: 

" She was alike unaffected in prosperity and adversity." 

The late Jesse Hawley, has left upon record the following 
tribute to the memory of the subject of our necessarily limited 
memoir: — 

" Oliver Phelps may be considered the Cecrops of the Genesee 
Country. Its inhabitants owe a Mausoleum to his memory, in 
gratitude for his having pioneered for them the wilderness of this 
Canaan of the West." 

Nathaniel Gorham, Esq., the partner of Mr. Phelps, in the 
land purchase, was a citizen of Boston, Massachusetts, was never 
a resident upon the purchase, and had but little to do with the 
details of its management. His son, Nathaniel Gorham, became 
an early resident of Canandaigua, and died there in 1826, leaving 
a widow, son and daughter. 



CHARLES WILLIAMSON. 



Soon after the purchase of Sir William Pultney, [in 1792,] 
Captain Charles Williamson was appointed his agent, and came 
upon the purchase. He came by the way of Williamsport, Penn- 
sylvania, and located at Bath, Steuben county. He was an Eng- 
lishman, (or a Scotchman,) well educated, with liberal views; 
though as it proved perhaps, not as well calculated to lead the way 
as the patroon of new settlements, as if he had seen more of back- 
woods life. 

In his first advent, he was accompanied by his wife, his friend 
and relative, Mr. Johnstone, a servant, and one laborer. Mr. 
Maude, an English traveller in this region, in '99, and 1800, 
says: — 

"On Capt. Williamson's first arrival, he built a small hut where 
now is Bath. If a stranger came to visit him, he built up a little 
nook for him to put his bed in. In a little time, a boarded or 
framed house was built to the left of the hut; this was also 
intended as but a temporary residence, though it then appeared a 
palace. His present residence, a very commodious, roomy, and 
well planned house, is situated on the right of where stood the log 



i 



330 HISTORY OF THE 

hut, long since consigned to the kitchen fire. * * * Qn 
the first settlement of the country, these mountainous districts 
were thought so unfavorably of when compared with the rich 
flats of Ontario county, (or the Genesee country,) that none of 
the settlers could be prevailed upon to establish themselves here 
till Capt. Williamson himself set the example, saying: — 'As nature 
has done so much for the northern plains, I will do something for 
these southern mountains;' though the truth of it was, that Capt 
Williamson saw very clearly, on his first visit to this country, that 
the Susquehannah, and not the Mohawk, would be its best friend. 
Even now, it has proved so, for at this day (1800) a bushel of 
wheat is better worth one dollar at Bath, than sixty cents at 
Geneva. This difference will grow wider every year; for little, 
if any improvement can be made with the water communication 
from New York, while that to Baltimore, will admit of extensive 
and advantageous one."* 

Few agents in the sale and settlement of a new country, have 
manifested more enterprise and liberality than Capt. Williamson. 
In addition to his early expenditures at Bath, he built a large hotel 
at Geneva, contributed to the opening of roads, and other primi- 
tive beginnings in the wilderness. He was a useful helper in time 
of need. The author knows little of his personal biography, yet a 
separate notice of one so early and prominently identified with 
pioneer history, has been deemed requisite. He left Western 
New York; was appointed by the British government, governor 
of one of the West India Islands, and died on his passage. 

There are many reminiscences that associate his memory with 
early times in Western New York; not the least of which are a 
series of letters which he wrote in 1799, published at the time in a 
pamphlet form: — "Description of the settlement of the Genesee 
country, in the State of New York, in a series of letters from a 
gentleman to his friend." The intention of the pamphlet was evi- 
dently, to circulate in the older portions of this country, and in 
England, — to attract public attention to the region where his prin- 



* The reader will smile at the prophecies of this early tourist; and yet his conclu- 
sions were quite natural ones at the time. For all the region he speaks of, the Susque- 
hannah then seemed the prospective avenue to the Atlantic; Baltimore, the commer- 
cial mart. But how changed the whole course of trade, by the achievments of our 
state, in the works of internal improvement ! Millions have been, and are now 
expending, to enable the district of country of which Mr. Maude was speaking, to 
roach the great aitery of internal commerce — the Erie Canal. A prosperous and 
wealthy valley, — its beautiful young city, planted among the hills, almost in the imme- 
diate neighborhood of Bath, extends an arm to reach it, and fall in with the great 
current of trade through the valley of the " Mohawk." 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 331 

cipal had become so largely interested; yet it was ably and truth- 
fully written, with the ken of prophecy it would almost seem; 
"visions of glory*' were indulged in, but not a tithe hardly, of the 
splendid consummations that have been realized. 



Such was the rapidity of the settlement of this wilderness, isola- 
ted as it was, from contiguous territory occupied by civilized com- 
munities, that by a census taken in December, 1790, recorded in 
''Imlay's Topographical description of the western territory of 
North America, London edition," it appears that thirty-four of the 
townships were then more or less settled; that it contained one hun- 
dred and ninety families, consisting of five hundred and five (white) 
males over sixteen years old; one hundred and eighty of that age 
and under; two hundred and ninety seven females; two free negroes; 
eleven slaves, and one Indian, making in the whole nine hundred and 
ninety six inhabitants; of these inhabitants, township No. 10, range 
2, (Hopewell) contained six families, thirteen males and no females; 
T. 10, R. 3, (Canandaigua) contained eighteen families, seventy-eight 
males and twenty females; T. 8, R. 4, (Bristol) contained four fami- 
lies, twenty males and no females; T. 10, R. 4, (Bloomfield) con- 
tained ten families, forty-four males and twenty females; and T. 
11,R. 4, (Bough ton Hill or Victor) contained four families, fifteen 
males and four females. 

The foregoing enumeration does not include the settlement of 
''Friends" the adherents of Jemima Wilkeson, consisting of about 
two hundred and sixty persons, who had established themselves near 
the outlet of Crooked lake, nor does it include the settlement at 
Geneva, supposed to consist of one hundred inhabitants, nor the 
inhabitants from thence, north to lake Ontario, as they were on 
what has been since called the "Gore," and was not then supposed 
to be included in Phelps and Gorham's purchase. The same census 
notes, that there were west of the Genesee river on the Indian 
lands, eleven families, (one of which M^as that of Hon. John H. 
Jones at old Leicester) composed of fifty-one individuals. 

Thus rapidly progressed the settlement of this tract, notwith- 
standing it had more than the ordinary difficulties in settling a new 
country to overcome; such as reports of the unusual unheal thiness 
of the climate, want of provisions to support life, and deficiency of 
title, set afloat by persons interested in the settlement of rival 



332 HISTORY OF THE 

districts of country; the absolute attack of the Indian chiefs, on the 
validity of the title, supported- or rather assisted by an attack 
of the British authorities in Canada. One of the usual and almost 
universal difficulties in settling all new countries, is the prevalence 
of diseases engendered by change of climate, extra fatigue and 
unusual exposures, of which this settlement had at least a moderate 
share — as well as the fear of Indian incursions. 

In a letter written by Mr. Phelps to his co-proprietor, Mr. Gor- 
ham, dated, Canandaigua, August 7, 1790, from which the follow- 
ing are extracts, the situation of the settlement is more truly des- 
cribed, and better depicted, than the most vivid description written 
at the present time could portray. Mr. Phelps writes: — 

" I arrived at this place the 29th ult. and found the people in 
this settlement very sickly, but the most of them are getting better, 
a bilious fever has been the prevailing distemper. Capt. Walker, 
my nearest neighbor, is now supposed to be dying with the bilious 
cholic. He will be much lamented as he was one of the most 
thorough farmers on the ground. We have sufiered much for the 
want of a physician. Dr. Atwater has not been in the country. 
We have now a gentleman from Pennsylvania attending on the 
sick, who appears to understand his business. The two Wads- 
worths [Messrs. William and James Wadsworth who settled at 
Geneseo,] who brought a large property into the country, have been 
very sick, and are now on the recovery, but are low-spirited. They 
hke the country, but their sickness has discouraged them. The 
settlement goes on as well as could be expected, there is a great 
number of people settled in the country. Enghsh grain is good, 
and we are now in the midst of our harvest." 

"The Indians are now in great confusion on account of some 
Indians being inhumanly killed by the white people; I am this 
moment setting out with an agent from Pennsylvania, to make 
them satisfaction for the two Indians murdered. I hope to be able 
to settle the matter, if I should not succeed, they will retaliate; I 
never saw them more enraged than they are at this time." 

It appears, however, that the mission of Mr. Phelps and the 
Pennsylvania agent, had no other effect than to induce the Indians 
to issue a kind of summons, dated August 12, 1790, directed to the 
Governor and Council of Pennsylvania, signed by Little Beard, 
(Beaver Tribe) Sangoyeawatau, Gisseharke, (Wolf Tribe) and 
Caunhisongo, of which the following is an extract: — 

"Now we take you by the hand and lead you to the Painted 
Post, or as far as your canoes can come up the creek, where you 
will meet the whole of the tribe of the deceased, and all the chiefs, 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 333 

and a number of the warriors of our nation, when we expect you 
will wash away the blood of your brothers and bury the hatchet, 
and put it out of memory, as it is yet sticking in our head. 

"Brothers, it is our great brother, your Governor, who must 
come to see us, as we will never bury the hatchet until our great 
brother himself comes and brightens the chain of friendship, as it is 
very rusty. — Brothers, you must bring the property of your 
brothers, you have murdered, and all the property of the 
murderers, as it will be great satisfaction to the families of the 
deceased. Brothers, the sooner you meet us the better, for our 
young warriors are very uneasv, and it may prevent great 
trouble." 

What the sequel of this transaction proved to be, we have not 
data to determine, although it undoubtedly was brought to an 
amicable termination; but that such a state of things must strike 
consternation over a new settlement, where the healthy inhabitants, 
have a sufficient task to provide for and take care of the sick, may 
well be conceived. As an instance of the assassin-like attacks 
made on this settlement, especially when it is considered that of all 
the privations incident to a new settlement, the want of provisions 
was less felt in this district than in any other as remote from old 
settlements; attacks made, it must be presumed, by men having rival 
interests to subserve, the following will suffice : — 

From the Maryland Journal, July 31st, 1789. 

" Extract of a letter from Northumberland County, dated 
July 2d:" — 'The people of the Genesee and Niagara country are 
crowding in upon us every day, owing to the great scarcity of 
provisions; the most of them who have gone there lately are 
starving to death, and it is shocking to humanity to hear of the 
number of the families that are dying daily for the want of suste- 
nance. Since I wrote the above, I have heard from the Genesee 
and Niagara country, that the scarcity of provisions has increased 
since the last accounts, so much, that flour was sold for £4 per 
hundred, and it is a fact that a cow, valued at £7 10s., was given by 
a man for a bushel of rye, to keep a wife and children from the jaws 
of death. The wild roots and herbs that the country affords, boiled 
and without salt, constitute the whole food of most of the un- 
happy people, who have been decoyed there, through the flat- 
tering accounts of the quality of the lands. You have my per- 
mission to publish this, in order to deter others from going, and it 
is thought that unless they get supplies from this and the neigh- 
boring counties, they will be compelled to quit the place, as their 
crops have universally failed. Several boat loads of flour that 
were carried from here, have been seized by force by the people." 



334 



HISTORY OF THE 



A more infamous libel on the character of the Genesee country 
and its inhabitants could not have been penned. At the time the 
printer issued this paper there was not to exceed fifteen families on 
the whole tract, who had come on within three months previous to 
that time, and those were mostly wealthy farmers who had emigra- 
ted from Massachusetts and Connecticut into the country, bringing 
with them, what was estimated to be a year's provision. They 
had not been in the country long enough to try the success or fail- 
ure of crops; but had it been otherwise, who that has ever entered 
into a log cabin in the Genesee country does not know that in times 
of scarcity of provisions, every man of the New England pioneers 
who would not divide with his necessitous neighbors without money 
and without price, would be considered as an outlaw in society. 

The attack of Cornplanter and other Indian chiefs, on the title 
of Phelps and Gorham to this tract was well calculated to arrest 
the sale of lands and the progress of the settlement. In 1790 and 
1791, Cornplanter, Half Town, and Great Tree, or Big Tree, 
sent serious complaints against Mr. Phelps contained in several 
memorials to the President of the United States, which if true 
might operate to invalidate the title of Phelps and Gorham to their 
purchase. The first memorial usually called "Cornplanter's 
speech," the following extract from which, contains most of the 
charges against Mr. Phelps and his transactions during the treaty 
for the lands set forth in the whole. To these charges Mr. Phelps 
was cited to answer, by the President. Mr. Phelps, as soon 
as they could be obtained, which however took him some time to 
effect, produced depositions, certificates, letters and other docu- 
mentary testimony, signed by such persons as Timothy Pickering, 
Judge Hollenbeck, Rev. Samuel Kirkland, Joseph Brant, and others 
which clearly proved that the charges contained in the memorials 
against him where untrue, as appears from the report of a com- 
mittee of the United States Senate made January 27, 1792, in the 
following words: — 

"Mr. Butler from the Committee on Indian affairs, to whom 
was referred the speeches of Cornplanter, of the 9th, of Decem- 
ber, 1790; 10th, of January, 7th, of February, and 17th, of 
March, 1791; made the following report: — 

" That Oliver Phelps of whom Cornplanter makes mention, pro- 
duced some affidavits and other papers, relating to the purchase of 
lands made by him of the Indians, which your Committee have 
examined, and are of opinion, that the said affidavits and other 



HOLLAND PURCHASE 335 

papers should be filed in the Secretary's office; and that your Com- 
mittee be discharged from the further consideration of this subject." 

Extracts from Cornplanter's Speech. 

"The voice of the Seneca Nation speaks to you, the great 
counsellor, in whose heart the wise men of all the Thirteen Fires 
have placed their wisdom. It may be very small in your ears, and 
we therefore entreat you to hearken with attention; for we are 
about to speak of things which are to us very great. When your 
army entered the country of the Six Nations, we called you the 
Town Destroyer, and to this day, when that name is heard, our 
women look behind them and turn pale, and our children cling close 
to the necks of their mother's. Our counsellors and warriors are 
men, and cannot be afraid; but their hearts are grieved with the 
fears of our women and children, and desire that it may be buried 
so deep as to be heard no more. When you gave us peace, we 
called you father, because you promised to secure us in the posses- 
sion of our lands. Do this, and, so long as lands shall remain, that 
beloved name will live in the heart of every Seneca. 

"Father: our nation empowered John Livingston to let out 
part of our lands on rent, to be paid to us. He told us, that he 
was sent by Congress to do this for us, and we fear he has deceived 
us in the writing he obtained from us; for since the time of our 
giving that power, a man of the name of Phelps has come among 
us, and claimed our whole country northward of the line of Penn- 
sylvania, under purchase of that Livingston, to whom he said he 
had paid twenty thousand dollars for it. He said, also, that he 
had bought, likewise, from the council of the Thirteen Fires, and 
paid them twenty thousand dollars more for the same. And he 
said, also, that it did not belong to us, for that the great King had 
ceded the whole of it, when you made peace with him. Thus he 
claimed the whole country north of Pennsylvania, and west of the 
lands belonging to the Cayugas. He demanded it; he insisted on 
his demand, and declared that he would have it all. It was 
impossible for us to grant him this, and we immediately refused it. 
After some days he proposed to run a line, at a small distance 
eastward of our western boundary, which we also refused to agree 
to. He then threatened us with immediate war, if we did not 
comply, 

" Upon this threat our chiefs held a council, and they agreed that 
no event of war could be worse than to be driven, with their wives 
and children, from the only country which we had a right to, and, 
therefore, weak as our nation was, they determined to take the 
chance of war, rather than submit to such unjust demands, which 
seemed to have no bounds. Street, the great trader at Niagara, 
was then with us, having come at the request of Phelps, and as he 
always professed to be our great friend, we consulted him on this 



336 HISTORY OF THE 

subject. He also told us, that our lands had been ceded by the 
King, and that we must give them up. 

"Astonished at what we heard from every quarter, with hearts 
aching with compassion for our wives and children, we were thus 
compelled to give up all our country north of the line of Penn- 
sylvania, and east of the Genesee river, up to the fork, and east of 
a south line drawn from that fork to the Pennsylvania line. For 
this land Phelps agreed to pay us ten thousand dollars in hand, and 
one thousand dollars a year for ever. He paid us two thousand 
and five hundred dollars in hand, part of the ten thousand, and he 
sent for us to come last spring, to receive our money; but instead 
of paying us the remainder of the ten thousand dollars, and the 
one thousand dollars due for the first year, he offei'ed us no more 
than five hundred dollars, and insisted that he had agreed with 
us for that sum to be paid yearly. We debated with him for six 
days, during all which time he persisted in refusing to pay us our 
just demand, and he insisted that we should receive the five hun- 
dred dollars; and Street, from Niagara, also insisted on our 
recieving the money as it was offered to us. The last reason he 
assigned for continuing to refuse paying us, was, that the King had 
ceded the lands to the Thirteen Fires, and that he had bought them 
from you and paid you for them. 

"We could bear this confusion no longer, and determined to 
force through every difficulty and lift up our voice that you might 
hear us, and to claim that security in the possession of our lands, 
which your commissioners so solemnly promised us. And we now 
entreat you to enquire into our complaints and redress our wrongs. 

"Father: Our writings were lodged in the hands of Street, of 
Niagara, as we supposed him to be our friend; but when we saw 
Phelps consulting with Street, on every occasion, we doubted of 
his honesty towards us, and we have since heard, that he was to 
receive for his endeavors to deceive us, a piece of land two miles 
in width, west of the Genesee river, and near forty miles in length, 
extending to lake Ontario; and the lines of this tract have been 
run accordingly, although no part of it is within the bounds which 
limit his purchase. No doubt he meant to deceive us. 

"Father: You have said that we are in your hand, and that, 
by closing it, you could crush us to nothing. Are you determined 
to crush us 1 If you are, tell us so, that those of our nation who 
have become your children, and have determined to die so, may 
know what to do. In this case, one chief has said he would ask 
you to put him out of pain. Another, who will not think of dying 
by the hand of his father, or of his brother, has said he will retire 
to Chatauque, eat off the fatal root, and sleep with his fathers in 
peace."* 

* The translator of this speech has taken the liberty to give the English orthography 
to the name of the lake. In Seneca, it was Jadaqueh: i. e. the place where a body 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 337 

And there was rivalry and misrepresentation to contend with in 
another quarter. The Upper Province of Canada had commenced 
settUng — there were land dealers there too, who wished to divert 
settlers from Western New York, and promote the interests of 
themselves and their localities. John Gould, Esq., who has already 
been cited, says, that at the period of his earliest residence in Can- 
ada, reports were spread prejudicial to the settlements then just 
commencing in Western New York. It was said that the country 
was sickly, the Livingston claim and others, were named as adverse 
titles. He observes, that on leaving Canada in 1804 to settle in 

the States, Esq. told him he would not give his farm in 

Canada for " all the land between Niagara and the Cayuga lake." 
And now, said the old gentleman to the author, as he looked out 
upon the broad well cultivated acres he and his children possess: — 

"I would not give my farm for Esq. 's, and half a dozen 

more like it." 

The new settlers were threatened with even more formidable 
difficulties than those that have so far been enumerated. Although 
the treaty of peace in 1783, between the United States and Great 
Britain, caused an immediate suspension of hostilities, and a with- 
drawal from all the posts held by the British in the Eastern States, 
there were still many delicate and difficult questions that remained 
to be settled, and which were a source of continual irritation and 
embarrassment. The posts at Oswego and Niagara, and all the 
western posts were not surrendered until 1796. The singular 
spectacle was presented here in Western New York, of surveys 
and settlement going on under the auspices of one government, 
while the battlements of fortified places, occupied by the troops of 

ascended, or was taken up. Cornplanter had allusion to a Seneca tradition: — A 
hunting party of Indians was once encamped upon the shores of this lake; a young 
squaw of the party, dag and eat a root that created thirst; to slake it, she went to the 
lake, and disappeared forever. Thence it was inferred, that a root grew there, which 
produced an easy death — a vanishing away from the afflictions of life. The author is 
aware that the name of the lake has been ascribed to another tradition, and that other 
derivations have been given. His authority is information derived from a native 
Seneca. 

Note. — The Livingston claim, otherwise called the Lessee claim was founded on the 
circumstance, that John Livingston and others had leased from the Indians, for 999 
years on a rent of two thousand dollars per annum, a large tract of land which was 
alledged to include the whole of the Massachusetts pre-emption tract: but as the whole 
transaction has been declared to be illegal by the legislation and judicial authorities of 
the State, and is now abandoned, although it has afforded a pretext for the Lesees, to 
receive donations from the state and from Phelps and Gorham; but with the Holland 
Company, their application, although commenced by a suit in ejectment, was lesp 
successful. 

22 



338 HISTORY OF THE 

another, were frowning upon the peaceable operations of enterprise 
and industry. 

The pretext for withholding these posts, was, that the United 
States had not fulfilled some of its treaty stipulations; the one that 
guarantied the payment of debts due from American to British 
subjects, being a special subject of complaint. But while such 
were the avowed reasons for not surrendering them, it is quite 
apparent, that they were not the real ones. A peace — a surrender 
of an empire such as this was, had been as we well know, a sacri- 
fice to necessity, humbling to the pride of England. A suspension 
of hostilities had been reluctantly consented to, with the lingering 
hojie and expectation, that something might occur, to prevent the 
final consummation of separation and independence. The holding 
of this line of posts afforded a feeble prospect of a successful 
renewal of the struggle, through a continued alliance with the 
Indians, and the placing of obstacles in the way of the peaceable 
overtures made to them by our government. And perhaps England 
entertained hopes that free government was a thing to talk about, 
and pretty successfully fight for — but would not admit of final 
consummation. There were difierences of opinion they well knew. 
— radical ones — among those who were to frame the new system; 
the whole matter looked to them, as it really was, surrounded with 
difficulties and embarrassnients. There might be a failure. Should 
it be so, here, in the possession of these posts — an alliance with 
the Indians — was a prospective nucleus for renewing the war 
and recovering the lost colonies; restoring the precious jewel that 
had dropped from England's crown. And here it may be remarked, 
upon the authority of circumstances, too strong to admit of much 
doubt, that the last vestige of such hopes with England, was not 
obliterated until the treaty of Ghent, that closed the war of 1812. 

Under the instructions of Congress, President Washington, 
immediately after the peace of '83, despatched Baron Steuben to 
Quebec to make the necessary arrangements with Sir Frederick 
Haldimand, for delivering up the posts that have been named. 
His mission not only contemplated the delivery of the posts to 
him, but preparations for their occupancy and repairs. The Baron 
met Gen. Haldimand at the Sorel, on a tour to the Lakes. He was 
informed by him that he had received no instructions from his 
government to evacuate the posts, nor for any overt act of peace, 
save a suspension of hostilities. He regarded himself as not at 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 339 

liberty to enter into any negotiations — complained of a non-fulfil- 
ment of treaty stipulations — and even refused the Baron a passport 
to Detroit. Thus ended the mission; and a long succession of 
negotiations and embarrassments followed, which belong to the 
province of general history. Our object here has only been to 
furnish an induction to local events. 

The withholding of the posts, was coupled with the assumption 
of jurisdiction and guardianship over the Indians, the Six Nations 
included. Extracts from the Maryland Journal: — 

" Whitkstown, July 9, 1794." 
" We learn by a gentleman immediately from the county of Onondaga, that the 
greatest part of the Onondaga tribe of Indians, who have heretofore resided in that 
part of the country, and annually received an annuity of 500 dollar.s from the State, 
have removed into the British territory of the Province of Upper Canada. Thai on 
the 25th ult., those Indians who were on their way, and had collected at the Onondaga 
Salt Springs, to take leave of the few who remained behind, and could not be pre- 
vailed on (notwithstanding the most insinuating and indefatigable exertions of the 
British lions of the North) to quit their country; the Indians wero collected in coun- 
cil, and the inhabitants, alarmed at the movement of those tawny sons of cruelty, 
were also collected." 

" Paii.ADKr.PinA, Sept. 1, 1794." 
" An Express arrived at the War Office on Saturday last from the Genesee country 
(within the State of New York) with despatches for the Executive of the United 
States, which were immediately laid before the President Several private letters, 
received by the same conveyance, advise that a peremptory order had been issued by 
Crl. Sivicoc, the Governor of Upper Canada, requiring an immediate removal of the 
inhabitants who have been for some time settled on a tract of land in that country, 
within the bounds of the United States, agreeably to the treaty of peace. They like- 
wise inform, that Capt. Williamson, and the other citizens of the United States, who 
are principally concerned in the settlement of those lands, were determined to resist 
the said order, and were preparing to oppose any force that may be sent to deprive 
them of their lawful rights and property." 

"Philadelphia, Sept, 1, 1794." 
" Sin: — If after the information, upon which my letter of the 20th of May, was 
founded, any considerable doubt had remained, of Gov. Sirncoe's invasion, your long 
silence, without a refutation of it, and our more recent intelligence, forbid us to question 
its truth. It is supported by the respectable opinions, which have been since trans- 
mitted to the Executive, that in the late attack on Fort Kecovcnj, British officers and 
British soldiers wero, on the very ground, aiding our Indian enemies. 

" But, Sir, as if the Governor of Upper Cauda was resolved to destroy every possi- 
bility of disbelieving his hostile vievi^s, he has sent to the Great Sodus — a settlement 
begun on a bay of the same name on Lake Ontario — a command to Captain 
Williamson, who derives a title from the State of Now York, to desist from his enter- 
prise. This mandate was borne by a Lieutenant Sheaffe, und<;r a military escort; a«d 
in its tone corresponds with the form of its delivery, being unequivocally of a military 
and hostile nature: — 

" I am commanded to declare that during the inexecution of the treaty of peace 



340 HISTORY OF THE 

between Great Britain and the United States, and until the existing differences 
respecting it shall be mutually and finally adjusted, the taking possession of any part of 
the Indian territory, either for the purposes of war or sovereignty, is held to be a direct 
violation of his Britannic Majesty's rights, as they unquestionably existed before the 
treaty; and has an immediate tendency to interrupt, and, in its progress, to destroy that 
£rood understanding which has hitherto subsisted between his Briiannic Majesty and 
the United States of America. I therefore require you to desist from any such aggres- 
sion. R. H. SHEAFFE, 

Lieutenant and Qr. Mr. Gen'l Dept. of his Briiannic MajcsUfs service." 

Captain Williamson being from home, a letter was written to him by Lieutenant 
Sheaffe, in the following words: 

"SoD0s, 16th August, 1794." 

"Sir: — Having a special commission and instructions for that purpose from the 
Lieutenant Governor of his Britannic Majesty's Province of U. Canada, I have corae 
here to demand by what authority an establishment has been ordered at this place, and, 
to require that such a design be immediately relinquished, for the reasons stated in the 
written declaration accompanying this letter; for the receipt of which protest I have 
taken the acknowledgment of your agent, Mr. Little. I regret exceedingly in my 
private as well as public character, that I have not the satisfaction of seeing you here, 
but I hope on my return, which will be about a week hence, to be more fortunate. 1 
am. Sir, your most obedient servant. R. H. SHEAFFE, 

Lt. BtkRcgt. Q. M. G. D." 

" The position of Sodus is represented to be seventy miles within the territorial line 
of the United States — about twenty from Oswego, and about one hundred from 
Niagara. 

" For the present, all causes of discontent, not connected with our western territory, 
shall be laid aside; and even among these shall not be revived the root of our 
complaints, the detention of the posts. But while peace is sought by us through every 
channel, which honor permits, the Governor of Upper Canada is accumulating 
irritation upon irritation. He commenced his operations of enmity at the rapids of the 
Miami. He next associated British with Indian force to assault our fort. He now 
threatens us, if we fell our own trees and build houses on our own lands. To what 
length may not Governor Simcoe go? Where is the limit to the sentiment which 
gave birth to these instructions? Where is the limit of the principle which Governor 
Simcoe avows? 

" The treaty and all its appendages we have submitted to fair discussion, more than 
two years ago. To the letter of my predecessor of the 29th of Ma}', 1792, you have 
not been pleased to make a reply, except that on the 20th of June 1793, the 22d of 
November, 1793, and the 21st of February, 1794, no instructions had arrived from 
your court. To say the best of this suspension, it certainly cannot warrant any new 
encroachments, howsoever, it may recommend to us forbearance under the old. 

" It is not for the Governors of his Britannic Majesty to interfere with the measures 
of the United States towards the Indians within their territory. You cannot. Sir, be 
insensible that it has grown into a maxim, that the affairs of the Indians within the 
boundaries of any nation, exclusively belong to that nation. But Governor Simcoe, 
disregarding this right of the United States, extends the line of usurpation in which he 
marches, by referring to the ancient and extinguished rights of his Britannic Majesty. 
For, if the existing condition of the treaty keeps them alive on the southern side of 
Lake Ontario, the Ohio itself will not stop their career. 

"You will pardon me. Sir, if under these excuses of Governor Simcoe, I am not 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 341 

discouraged by your having formerly disclaimed a control over, and a responsibility for, 
the Governors of his Britannic Majesty, from resorting to you on this occasion. You 
are addressed from a hope, that if he will not be restrained by your remonstrances, he 
may at least be apprized, through you, of the consequences of self-defence. 

1 have the honor to be. Sir, &c. 
Hon. George Hammond, EDM. RANDOLPH. 

Minister Plenipotentiary of his Britannic Majesty." 

To this letter of Secretary Randolph, Mr. Hammond replied, 
under date, New York, Sept. 3, 1794, that he should transmit 
copies of Mr. Randolph's letter by the earliest opportunity, to Gov. 
Simcoe and His Majesty's ministers in England. The invasion of 
Gov. Simcoe referred to at the commencement of Mr. Randolph's 
letter, was the marching of British troops by Gov. Simcoe's orders, 
and taking post and erecting a fort on the Maumee river, early in 
1794. 

Between these movements of Gov. Simcoe, and a passage in the 
" Travels of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld Liancourt," which has 
already been quoted in another connection, there is a remarkable 
coincidence. The Duke visited the Governor at Niagara, about 
the period of these acts of aggression. The passage is as follows: 
"He," (Gov. Simcoe,) "discourses with much good sense, on all 
subjects, but his favorite topics are, his projects and war, which 
seem to be the objects of his leading passions. He is acquainted 
with the military history of all countries; no hillock catches his 
eye without exciting in his mind the idea of a fort which might 
be constructed on the spot, and with the construction of this fort, 
he associates the plan of operations for a campaign, especially of 
that which is to lead him to Philadelphia.^^ It is not presuming too 
much, to conclude that his aim was to embroil the frontiers of 
Western New York, and the North West Territory in difficulties, 
which he designed should eventuate in war; and he, at the head 
of a British Army, take the high road to Philadelphia, and to fame. 

From the Maryland Jour7ial, of Nov, 21, 1794. 

" Whitestown, Nov. 5." 
"A gentleman directly from Canandarquie, informs that 1600 Lidians had come in 
to the treaty on Monday Se'nnight — and also that Wm. Johnson, a British Indian 
agent, and a Mr. Steel, the Indian interpreter from Niagara, were also ihere, and had 
found means to collect 26 chiefs in a bye-place, and were haranguing of them in the 
most eloquent and flattering manner, when discovered by the inhabitants, they were 
using the most persuasive acts, together with offers of large presents, to induce the 
Indians to turn their arms against the United States. The meeting broke up in a 
disorderly manner. The inhabitants were greatly exasperated at this insolent conduct 
of British agents; and it is said that they gave out that if Col. Pickering did not cause 
their arrest, they would inflict upon them the Yankee punishment of tar and feathers." 



342 HISTORY OF THE 

From same paper, of Dec. 9, 1794. 

" Albany Nov. 27." 
" The Genesee treaty, we are informed, has terminated much to the satisfaction of the 
commissioner of the United States, and of the Six Nations of Indians, who have 
relinquished all right and title to the Presque Isle territorj', and a tract of land four 
miles wide, from Johnston's Landing to Fort Slauser, including Fort Niagara; and 
also granted to the United States, the right of passing and repassing through their 
country." 

The disposition to renew the war, the work of mischief that 
was commenced and carried on among the Indians — perhaps the 
behgerent spirit of Gov. Simcoe, had been greatly promoted by a 
measure of Lord Dorchester, after the defeat of St. Clair. View- 
ing it now, after the lapse of over half a century, it is impossible to 
construe it in any other way than as a premeditated attempt to 
renew the Indian border wars; and as his Lordship had but recently 
returned from a visit to England, it would seem that he acted under 
home influences which contemplated a recommencement of hostil- 
ties upon a much larger scale. Having been waited upon by a 
deputation of Indians, of the west, for advice in reference to their 
existing boundary difficulties with the United States, he answered 
them in the following speech : — 

"Children: — I was in expectation of hearing from the people 
of the United States what was required by them. I hoped that I 
should have been able to bring you together and make you friends. 

"Children: — I have waited long and hstened with great atten- 
tion, but I have not heard one word from them. 

"Children: — I flatter myself with the hope that the line pro- 
posed in the year eighty-three, to separate us from the United 
States, which was immediately broken by themselves as soon as the 
peace was signed, would have been mended, or a new one drawn, 
in an amicable manner. Here, also, I have been disappointed. 

"Children: — Since my return, I find no appearance of a line 
remains; and from the manner in which the people of the United 
States rush on, and act, and talk, on this side; and from what I 
learned of their conduct towards the sea, I shall not be surprised 
if we are at war with them in the course of the present year, 
and if so, a line must be drawn by the warriors, 

"Children: — You talk of selling your lands to the state of 
New York. I have told you that there was no line between them 
and us. I shall acknowledge no lands to be theirs which have 
been encroached on by them since the year 1783. They then 
broke the peace, and as they keep it not on their part, it doth not 
bind on ours. 

"Children: — They then destroyed their right of pre-emption. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 343 

Therefore all their approaches towards us since that time, and all 
the purchases made by them, I consider as an infringement on the 
King's rights. And when a line is drawn between us, be it in 
peace or war, they must lose all their improvements and houses 
on our side of it.- Those people must all begone who do not obtain 
leave to become the King's subjects. What belongs to the Indians, 
will of course, be secured and confirmed to them. 

"Children: — What farther can I say to you? You are wit- 
nesses that on our parts, we have acted in the most peaceable man- 
ner, and borne the language and conduct of the people of the United 
States with patience. But I believe our patience is almost exhausted." 

As we have no information beyond the correspondence intro- 
duced, in reference to the affair between Lieut. Sheaffe* and Capt. 
Williamson, we are left to infer that the spirited communication of 
Secretary Randolph induced His Brittanic Majesty's plenipoten- 
tiary, to curb the further raging of loyal wrath in the bosom of 
Gov. Simcoe. 

It can well be imagined how all that we have been alluding to, 
helped to throw obstacles in the way of settlement, and perplex 
the backwoods adventurers. There was a long succession of 
harassing events, of fearful apprehensions and danger. The Six 
Nations of Indians not wholly reconciled, in their midst; far out- 
numbering them; conquered but not subdued; their jealousies and 
prejudices excited by such powerful influences as have been 
alluded to; their tomahawks and scalping knives still stained with 
the blood of their victims in the border wars; in whose bosoms 
rankled dire revenge for the retributive justice so lately inflicted 
upon them by Gen. Sullivan. Although there were no Indians on 
the Phelps and Gorham tract, yet numerous villages, teeming with 
their warriors, were in its immediate neighborhood, — the barrier 
of distance not intervening as a shield against their stealthy incur- 
sions. In the year 1793, after the defeat of Generals Harmer and 
St. Clair, in the Northwestern Territory, in which British officers 
and soldiers, as well as some of our own Indians participated with 

* The then Lieut. Sheaffe, was afterwards the Maj. Gen. Sheaffe, of the war of 
1812. At the commencement of the Revolution, he was a lad, residing with his wid- 
owed mother, in Boston. Earl Percy's quarters were in his mother's house. H« 
became his protege, received from him a militant' education and a commission in the 
army, from which he rose to the rank of Major General. The commencement of the 
war of 1812 found him stationed in Canada. He professed a reluctance to engage in 
it, and wished rather a transfer to some other country, than a participation in a war 
against his countrymen. For his exploit at Queenslon Heights, he was created a Bar- 
onet. These facts are derived from a note in Stone's life o-f Brant. 



344 • HISTORY OF THE 

our enemy, and before the victory obtained by Gen. Wayne, over 
those Indians in 1794, the "Genesee Indians behaved very rudely, 
they vi^ould impudently enter the houses of the whites (in the Gen- 
esee country,) and take the prepared food from the tables without 
leave, but immediately after the event of the battle (Wayne's 
victory,) was known, they became humble and tame as spaniels." 
It was a fact known only at the time to Judge Hosmer and Gen. 
Israel Chapin, Superintendent of Indian affairs, residing at Avon 
and Canandaigua, "that the Genesee Indians were ready to rise 
upon the frontier dwellers of this state, as soon as it should be 
known that the Indians had been victorious over Wayne, which 
they did not doubt." Judge Hosmer and Gen. Chapin received 
this information from an American gentleman, living at Newark, 
(Niagara) Upper Canada. This gentleman's name, whose charac- 
ter stood high in the confidence of government, was ever kept a 
secret by those two gentlemen, nor was the rumor suffered to 
spread among the inhabitants, as it would probably have depopu- 
lated the country; but it put these two gentlemen on the guard 
until the contingency was settled. 

For the foregoing information, we are indebted to George 
Hosmer, Esq. 

Though there was no concerted or formidable participation of the 
Six Nations, in the war going on at the west, it is plain that they 
meant to keep themselves in a position to take advantage of any ill 
success of Wayne's expedition. It is inferred by Col. Stone that 
there were Seneca Indians in the final battle with Wayne, or if not, 
runners of that nation stationed near the scene of action, from the 
fact that the Indians of Western New York, were apprized of the 
result before the whites were. 

The inference of the following letter from Gen. Wayne, to Corn- 
planter, and two other Seneca chiefs, is, that the position of the 
Senecas was an undefined one; that although it was professedly 
one of inaction, or neutrahty, the government through the agency 
of Gen. Wayne, found it necessary, while quelling the western 
Indians, to lay anchors to the windward, to guard against the 
participation of the Senecas in the disturbances it was endeavoring 
to quell. The letter is copied from the original manuscript; 
attached to which, is the autograph signature of the brave, impetu- 
ous, but successful "Mad Anthony." There is no date to the 
letter, but the contents indicate about the period it was written: — 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 345 

Brothers! — 

"It was the sincere wish and desire of the President (General Washington) to see 
you in Philadelphia at the Grand Council Fire of the Fifteen United States of America, 
whilst the chosen Counsellors were assembled together from every part of this great 
Island: 

" He, therefore, commanded me to send to invite you to come to Philadelphia to 
meet him in that Council & to inform yod that he had sent to invite Red Jacket and 
other Chiefs to meet him also. — 

"Pursuant to this command of the President, I sent Mr. Rosecrantz with a message 
to you from Pittsburgh on the llth day of November last (more than four moons 
since) inviting you to that Council Fire: 

"You returned for answer "that you could not come at present, as you had so 
much business to do among yourselves, which you must first attend to." 

" At the same time you were so good «& friendly as to communicate the proceedings 
& result of the Grand Council of the Hostile and other Chiefs assembled at Au-Glaize 
which I received by Mr. Rosecrantz and Cayondoe, now present. 

" They were partly the same as had been communicated to General Washington by 
you & the other Chiefs of the Six Nations from Buffalo Creek some time before. 

" But the President still wishing to see «fe talk with you at the Grand Council Firo 
then kindled in Philadelphia, ordered me to .send you a second message to meet him 
there that he might hear & understand from your own lips the terms upon which the 
Hostile Indians would agree to make peace — and which would be more fully «fe better 
explained viva voce or, by word of mouth, — than in writing, as many questions might 
occur that were not thought of at the time of writing. 

" In obedience to those orders, I sent you another invitation by Mr. Rosecrantz and 
Cayondoe to meet the President in Philadelphia at the Council Fire, hoping that by 
that time you had settled the business you had to transact among yourselves: 

" You have now come forward — but, it is too late ; the fire is extinguished — and 
will not be rekindled until November next, i. e. between eight &> nine moons from 
this time. 

"I am however, happy to inform you that the Farmers brother, the young King the 
Infant, the Shining breast-plate & two others of inferior rank went forward and met 
the President & Grand Council of the Fifteen Fires in Philadelphia agreeably to the 
invitation which I mentioned had been sent to them by the President and from whom 
it is probable that the President and Council have received the required information ; 
those Chiefs must have returned to their towns about the time that you set oiF to come 
to this place ; and will be able to inform you of the Council held with them. 

" I will now fully inform you of the intelligence I have just received from Gen'l 
Knox the Secretary : viz. agreeably to the request of the Six Nations assembled at 
Buffalo Creek last November. — The President & Grand Council of the Fifteen Fires 
of the United States have appointed three Commissioners to hold a conference with 
the Hostile Indians about the first day of June next at the Lower Sandusky : they 
will probably be at Niagara about the middle of May; from whence it's also probable 
that you with the other Chiefs of the Six Nations will accompany them to the treaty 
and use your influence & good offices to procure a permanent peace ; so much the 
true interest of all parties concerned. 

" But if after all your good «fe friendly offices, aided by the sincere wish & desire of 
the President «fc Grand Council of the United States for Peace, it cannot be obtained 
but by the sacrifice of National Character & Honor, I hope and trust that there will 
be but one voice and mind to prosecute the war with that vigor and effect — that the 



346 HISTORY OF THE 

Hostile Indians will have cause to lament that they did not listen to the voice of peace. 
"Having thus communicated to you all the information that I have received respec- 
ting the proposed treaty and having spoken my mind openly & freely as a Warrior 
ever ought to do when speaking to friends & brothers, — 

"I have now to request that you will also speak your minds freely & without reserve: 
so that we may perfectly understand each other: this is what you requested me to do— 
and what I have done. 

" You will therefore make your minds easy — and consider yourselves in the midst of 
your friends and brothers. — 

ANT'Y WAYNE, 
Major General Sf Commander in Chief of the troops 

of the United States of America. 
Thz Cornplanter, "^ 

New Arrow, ! Chiefs of the 

Geyesutha and j Alleghany." 

Stiff Knee (alias) Big Tree. J 

The effect of the decisive victory of Gen. Wayne, his thorough 
scourging of the hostile Indians of the west and northwest, put an 
end to all existing Indian disturbances. Its happy influences 
extended to all the interests of our country. The Indian wars had 
come when the government and people were tired of war, and 
were looking forward to peace and repose. But no where was the 
consummation hailed with greater joy, than among those who 
struggling with all the usual hardships and privations of new settle- 
ments, had been encountering the additional obstacle, the fear that 
the scenes of thp border war, were to be re-enacted in their midst. 

With the Six Nations, it was followed by the burying of the 
tomahawk, "never to be dug up." Settling down upon their 
Reservations, they became gentle and inoffensive; friendly to the 
new settlers as they began to drop in around them; the faithful 
allies of the United States, in the contest of 1812; emphatically, it 
may be said, that in all the time that has intervened, from the 
period we have been speaking of, to the present, they have been 
far more " sinned against, than sinning." 

The Society of Friends, of Philadelphia — or rather, what is 
termed the "Philadelphia yearly meeting," — were the early, and 
have been the constant guardians of the welfare and interests of 
the Senecas, as the reader will observe in some of the early annals 
that will follow. Their good offices were interposed in counselling 
peace and the pursuit of peaceful avocations. Among some old 
manuscripts the author has in his possession, which belonged to 
Cornplanter and Red Jacket, is the following letter, which it will 
be observed bears date a few months after Wayne's victory. It 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 347 

breathes a kind spirit, and was well calculated to promote the 
interests not only of the Indians, but of those who were becoming 
their neighbors: — 

Philadelphia 1st. month, 24th, 1795. 
My good friend the Farmers Brother. 

By Capt. Chapin I thought proper to inform thee, & thy Nation, that me and all 
my friends who attended the Treaty at Canandarqua, arrived safe home and found our 
friends well — we Reflect frequently on your friendly Disposition towards us, & the 
Issue of the Treaty which we hope will be the means of a Lasting peace Between you 
& the United States — we hope you will keep the Remainder of your Land in your 
hands, and learn to Cultivate it & that you will by all means keep in Peace with the 
White People as well as with your Indian Brethren & all men — this will be your 
greatest happiness, if we your friends the Quakers of Philadelphia Can be of any 
Service to you we are Ready & willing at any time, «fc we Desire you may be free in 
applying to us — with a great Deal of Regard & Desire for your Welfare, I am your 
friend, 

WILLIAM SAVERY. 

Among the same manuscripts, is the following, by which it would 
seem that soon after taking possession of Fort Niagara by the 
troops of the United States, there was an assembling there of the 
sachems and warriors of the Six Nations, to interchange sentiments 
of peace, friendship, and mutual aid. Nothing accompanies the 
manuscript to explain it; the author has no cotemporary history of 
the council it would indicate; but it is an interesting relic; and its 
contents have a direct bearing upon early local events: — 

Sachams and Brother warriors of the six nations residing within the territory of the 

United States; I welcome you to Niagara. 

We have meet, — Brothers — to brighten that chain of friendship which is strectched 
out to you; — to your brethern on the western waters; — and to the whole world. A 
proof of this — these Western posts that have so long been witheld, are at length given 
up without the spilling of blood; and a good understanding now subsists between the 
United States and the British Government: Lines are fixed and so strongly marked 
between us that they cannot be mistaken, and every precaution taken to prevent a 
misunderstanding. Within these lines you hold large tracts of land: — in the sure and 
peaceable possession of which the United States have taken care to guard you as their 
own children and citizens: and if any rememberance of former animosities yet remain 
— let us burr)- them in the grave of forgetfulness. 

Brothers: — As we have become near neighbors — it will be our interest that we 
shall also be good friends: be assured, you will experience in us a disposition to culti- 
vate harmony and a good understanding; and that we hope to find the same disposition 
in vou: As a pledge of the sincerity of these professions, and as a token of regard the 
president of the United States has charged me with — and I now have the honour to 
present you a flag of our nation: may the luster of its stars illuminate the western 
world; and while the increase of its stripes give to our friends a confidence of our 
abilitj', to protect them; may they, also, admonish such as would disturb our peace; — 
of our power to chastise them. 

Brothers: — Thus far (I conceive) I have spoken by authority derived from the 



348 HISTORY OF THE 

father of our countrj' — the president of the United States: indulge me a moment 
while I speak in behalf of this garrisson, the command of which he has honoured me 
with, vou know (better than I do) that there is no road by which cured provissions and 
other necessaries can be sent us from our settlements; that in winter all communication 
by water is cut off; that the land between this and Genesee river is yours, and without 
your permission, we will not attempt to widen, mend or straighten your road, which at 
present is scarcely passable, but which if done, will not only be an accomodation to 
this garrisson; — to our settlers on the genesee, and our British neighbors on the opposite 
shore; — but to yourselves also: nor will our making use of it in common with you, 
injure your property — or invade your rights: the road as well as the country, being 
yours. I wish you therefore, to consult together, and if you agree with me in senti- 
ment; give us permission to widen, mend and straighten, the road to Connowagoras. 

Brothebs: — As guardian of the honour, rights and interest of my country in this 
quarter — my duty makes it necessarj- for me to take notice of a practice — I have 
already represented to the British commandant on the opposite shore as wrong. While 
the British held this post, they also claimed the souvreignty of the country quite to our 
settlements: It was then a practice (and the precedent is yet contended for) to imploy 
Indians to pursue deserters on the American side of the line to the Genesee river: 
such pursuits are now improper. The British will not permit them on their side the 
water: because they (justly) consider it an infraction of the rights of nations: — what 
is a violation of rights on one side, must be so on the other. This practice therefor, if 
persisted in — may involve the two governments in very disagreeable disputes (now 
perhaps in your power to prevent) but which if you encourage; may terminate very 
unpleaseut to both countries and yourselves. I therefore request, that you will 
admonish youT brethren not to meddle with disputes between white people, of so 
delicate a nature — our ditTerences (experience may have taught you) will not benefit 
you, but your interference may involve us ver}' disagreeably. For if I know the interest 
& wish of my country', it is for peace: — but however thus disposed, she ought not, she 
cannot, and 1 am persuaded, will not tamely suffer her territory to be violated — her 
sovereignty on this the water to be disputed, and her rights contemptuously to be 
trampled on. I beg you, therefore, to restrain your people from a practice the pernicious 
consequences of which I have taken some pains to put in a proper light. 

Brothers: — Yesterday you received some refreshment — to day there is a further 
supply provided and ready for you; when we have finished our business, (which I hope 
will be soon,) I have a barrel of rum to present you; that you may with your brethren 
you left to keep up your fires in your absence, drink prosperity to the United States — 
health and long life to our President. I wish my supplies would afford you those neces- 
saries you solicit, have been in the habit of receiving here; and appear to want. But 
when you reflect that I command but the advance of the American troops intended for 
this post — and that my stores must consequently be small — you cannot expect much 
— such as they are; you have partaken of. May your stay here be pleasant — may we 
part satisfied, and on your return, may the Great Spirit take you under his care — so 
that you may arrive safely at your respective homes, and find all you left behind in 
security — your friends and connexions will. 

Niagara, September 23d, 1796. J. BRUFF, Captain Commanding." 

The following, derived from the same source, though not of a 
local character, is inserted chiefly to preserve a relic of one, the 
bare mention of whose name excites the liveliest recollections of 
our war of independence, and those foremost in achieving it. It 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 349 

was an invitation of the Senecas to join in St. Clair's expedition; 
an expedition in which the brave and chivalric writer of the auto- 
graph we transcribe, was a victim to the tomahawk and scalping 
knife, after he was carried from the field to have wounds dressed 
previously received : — 

"Brothers of the Fiye Nations: — 

The bearer hereof Mons'r De Bartzch having express'd a Desire to assist and go 
with such of your people as may be inclin'd (and you think proper to send) to join 
Governor St. Clair & accompany the Army of the U. S. against the Western Hostile 
tribes of Indians — As you & Mons'r De Bartzch are acquainted, should any of your 
People join the Governor & Troops, and that he is still inclin'd to go on the Expedi- 
tion, and that it is agreeable to you and your People that he should be with you, it 
will be ver}' agreeaWe to mo as I believe him to be a Gentleman, and of very honora- 
ble Character — I am Brothers your Real Friend 

RICH'D BUTLER, 

Maj'r Gen'l in the U. S. Army. 

Pittsburgh, June 5th, 1791. 

To the CoRNPLANTER, and other Chiefs and Warriors of the Five Nations." 



ROBERT MORRIS. 



A short biography of one eminently useful in our Revolutionary 
struggle, is suggested by his after identity with our local region- 
He was as will have been seen, at one period, the proprietor of 
the whole of Western New York west of Phelps and Gorham's 
Purchase, by purchase from Massachusetts, and the Seneca Indians. 

In the attempt of feeble colonies, to throw off the yoke of 
oppression, there was work to be done in council as well as in the 
field — at the financier's desk, as well as in the more conspicuous 
conflicts of arms. If raw troops, called from the field and work- 
shop, were to be enrolled and disciplined, upon a sudden emergency, 
provisions were to be made for their equipment and sustenance- 
Both were tasks surrounded with difficulty and embarrassment; 
both required men and minds of no ordinary cast. Fortunately 
they were found. Washington was the chief, the leader of our 
armies, the master spirit that conducted the struggle to a glorious 
termination; Morris was the financier. They were heads of 
co-ordinate branches, in a great crisis, and equally well performed 
their parts. 

Robert Morris was born in Liverpool, in 1733. His father 
emigrated to the United States in 1745, and settled at Port 
Tobacco, in Maryland, engaging extensively in the tobacco trade. 



350 HISTORY OF THE 

He met his death in a singular manner, when the subject of this 
sketch was but a youth. He was the consignee of a ship that had 
arrived from a foreign port; the custom then was to fire a gun 
when the consignee came on board. As if he had a presentiment 
that the ceremony would prove fatal to him, he had requested its 
omission. The captain iiad so ordered, but a sailor, not having 
understood the order, and supposing the omission accidental, seized 
a match, and fired the gun as Mr. Morris was leaving the ship. A 
portion of the wadding fractured his arm, mortification and death 
ensued. 

Previous to the death of his father, Robert Morris had been 
placed in the counting house of Mr. Charles Willing, an eminent 
merchant of Philadelphia, where he soon acquired a proficiency in 
mercantile affairs that recommended him as a partner of the son 
of his employer. 

When the first difficulties occurred between the colonies and the 
mother country, though extensively engaged in a mercantile busi- 
ness that was to be seriously affected by it, he was one of other 
patriotic Philadelphia merchants who promoted and signed the non- 
importation agreement, which restricted commercial intercourse 
with Great Britain to the mere necessaries of life. 

When the news of the battle of Lexington reached Philadelphia, 
Mr. Morris was presiding at a dinner usually given on the anni- 
versary of St. George. He participated in putting a sudden stop 
to the celebration in honor of an English saint, and helped to upset 
the tables that had been spread. His resolution was fixed. It was 
one of devotion to the cause of the colonies; and well was it 
adhered to. 

In 1775 and '76 he was a member of Congress, and became a 
signer of the Declaration of Independence. A few days after the 
battle of Trenton, it became a matter of great importance to the 
commander-in-chief, to obtain a sum of money in specie, in order 
to keep himself well advised of the movements of the enemy. He 
applied to Mr. Morris for that purpose, and received the following 
answer: — 

"Philadelphia, Dec. 30, 1776. 
" Sir — I have just received your favor of this day, and sent to Gen. Putnam to detain 
the express until I collected the hard money you want, which you may depend shall be 
sent in one specie or other with this letter, and a list thereof, shall be enclosed herein. 
I had long since parted with very considerable sums of hard money to Congress, and 
therefore must collect from others — and as matters now stand, it is no easy thing. I 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 351 

mean to borrow silver and promise payment in gold, and then collect the gold the best 
way I can. Whilst on this subject, let me inform you, that there is upwards of twenty 
thousand dollars of silver at Ticonderoga. They have no particular use for it, and I 
think you might as well send a party to bring it away, and lodge it in a safe place con- 
venient for any purposes for which it may hereafter be wanted. Whatever I can do 
shall be done for the good of the cause. 

I am dear Sir, yours, &c. 

ROBERT MORRIS." 

When Washington had re-crossed the Delaware for the second 
time, in Dec. 1777, the time of service of nearly all the eastern 
troops had expired. To induce them to engage for another six 
weeks, he promised a bounty of ten dollars each; and for the 
necessary funds applied to Mr. Morris. In the answer of Mr. 
Morris, accompanying the sum of fifty thousand dollars, he congrat- 
ulates the commander-in-chief upon his success in retaining the men, 
and assures him that "if farther occasional supplies of money are 
wanted, you may depend on my exertions either in a public or pri- 
vate capacity." 

In March, 1777, he was chosen with Benjamin Franklin and 
others, to represent the assembly of Pennsylvania in Congress; and 
in November following, was associated with Mr. Gerry, and Mr. 
•Tones, to repair to the army and confidentially consult with the 
commander-in-chief upon the best plan of conducting the winter 
campaign. In August, 1778, he was appointed a member of the 
standing committee of finance. 

The years 1778, and '79, were the most distressing periods of 
the war. The finances were in a wretched condition, and Mr. 
Morris, not only advanced his money freely, but put in requisition 
an almost unlimited individual credit.* 

* Judge Peters relates the following anecdote: — "We (the Board of War,) had 
exhausted all the lead accessible to us; having caused even the spouts of houses to be 
melted; and had unsuccessfully offered the equivalent of two shillings specie, (25 cents,) 
per lb. for lead. I went on the evening of a day in which 1 received a letter from the 
army, to a splendid entertainment given by Don Mirailles, the Spanish minister. My 
heart was sad, but I had the faculty of brightening my countenance even under gloomy 
disasters; yet it seems not then with sufficient adroitness, for Mr. Morris, who was one 
of the guests, and knew me well, discovered some casual trait of depression. He accos- 
ted me in his usual frank and ingenuous manner, saying: — ' I see some clouds passing 
across the sunnv countenance you assume; what is the matter?' After some hesitation 
I showed him the general's letter which I had brought from the office, with the intention 
of placing it at home, in a private cabinet. He played with my anxiety, which he did 
not relieve for some lime. At length however, with great and sincere delight, he called 
me aside and told me that the Holker privateer had just arrived at his wharf with ninety 
tons of lead which she had brought as ballast. 'You shall have' said Mr. Morris 'my 
half of this fortunate supply; there are the owners of the other half,' (indicating gentle- 
men in the department.) The other half was obtained. Before morning, a supply of 
cartridges was made ready and sent off to the army." 



352 HISTORY OF THE 

In 1781, (a period of despair,) in addition to other contributions 
of money and credit, Mr. Morris supplied the almost famishing 
troops with several thousand barrels of flour. This timely aid 
came when it was seriously contemplated to authorize the seizure 
of provisions wherever they could be found; a measure which 
would have been unpopular with the whole country, and probably 
turned back the tide of public feeling flowing in favor of the 
Revolution. 

There is upon record a long catalogue of transactions similar to 
those which have been related. Not only the commander-in-chief 
but Generals of divisions, found Mr. Morris the dernier resort 
when money and provisions were wanted. To private means that 
must have been large, and a large credit, he added astonishing 
faculties as a financier. When he had no other resource, he would 
compel others to use their money and credit. In financial negoti- 
ations, with him, to will a thing was to do it. 

He was appointed to the office of " Financier," or what was 
equivalent to the now office of Secretary of the Treasury. Never 
perhaps, in any country, was a minister of finance placed over a 
treasury the condition of which was worse. To use a phrase of 
the play-house, it was a 

" Beggarly account of empty boxes." 

It had not a dollar in it, and was two millions and a half in debt. 
Those who have seen Gen. Washington's miUtary journal, of the 
1st of May. 1781, can form some idea of the condition of the 
army, and the finances. 

It was the province of Mr. Morris to financier for Congress, and 
a country and cause, in such a crisis. He began by restoring credit 
and establishing confidence; promulgated the assurance that all his 
official engagements would be punctually met; and put in requi- 
sition his private means, the means of his friends, to fulfill the 
promises he had held out. When apprized of his appointment to 
the management of financial affairs, he replied: — "In accepting the 
office bestowed upon me, I sacrifice much of my interest, my ease, 
my domestic enjoyment, and internal tranquility. If I know my 
own heart, I make these sacrifices with a disinterested view to the 
service of my country, I am willing to go further, and the United 
States may command every thing I have except my integrity, and 
the loss of that would effectually disable me from serving them 
more." 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 353 

Among his financial expedients, to resuscitate public credit, 
was the establishment of the Bank of North America. Collateral 
security was given for the performance of the engagements of the 
institution in the form of bonds, signed by wealthy individuals. 
Mr. Morris heading the list with a subscription of £10,000. 

In a private interview with Washington the subject of an attack 
on New York was broached. Mr. Morris dissented; assuming 
that it would be at too great a sacrifice of men and money; that 
vhe success of the measure was doubtful; that even if successful 
the triumph as to results, would be a barren one; the enemy hav- 
ing command of the sea could at any time land fresh troops and 
retake it, &c. Assenting to these objections, the commander- 
in-chief said: — "What am I to do? The country calls on me for 
action; and moreover my army cannot be kept together unless 
some bold enterprise is undertaken." To this Mr. Morris replied: 
" Why not lead your forces to Yorktown? there Cornwallis may 
be hemmed in by the French fleet by sea, and the American and 
French armies by land, and will ultimately be compelled to sur- 
render." " Lead my troops to Yorktown !" said Washington, appear- 
ing surprised at the suggestion. " How am I to get them there? 
One of my difficulties about attacking New York arises from the 
want of funds to transport my troops thither. How then can I 
muster the means that will be requisite to enable them to march to 
Yorktownt" "You must look to me for funds," rejoined Mr. Mor- 
ris. " And how are you to provide themt" said Washington. 
"That," said Mr. Morris, "I am unable at this time to tell you, but 
I will answer with my head, that if you will put your army in 
motion, I will supply the means of their reaching Yorktown." 
After a few minutes reflection, Washington said: — "On this assur- 
ance of yours, Mr. Morris, such is my confidence in your ability 
to perform any engagement you make, I will adopt your sugges- 
tion." 

When the army arrived at Philadelphia, Mr. Morris had the 
utmost diflSculty in furnishing the supplies he had promised, but at 
last hit upon the expedient of borrowing twenty thousand crowns 
from the Chevalier de Luzerne, the French Minister. The Chev- 
alier objected that he had only funds enough to pay the French 
troops, and could not comply unless two vessels with specie on 
board for him arrived from France. Fortunately, about the time 

23 



354 HISTORY OF THE 

the troops were at Elk, preparing to march for Yorktown, the 
ships arrived, the money was procured, and especial pains taken 
to parade the specie in open kegs, before the army. The troops 
were paid, and cheerfully embarked to achieve the crowning tri- 
umph of the Revolution.* 

John Hancock, President of Congress, writing to Mr. Morris 
in a severe crisis of the Revolution, says: — "I know however, 
you will put things in a proper way, all things depend upon you, 
and you have my hearty thanks for your unremitting labor." Gen. 
Charles Lee said to him in a letter, when he assumed the duties 
of Secretary of an empty treasury: — "It is an office I cannot 
wish you joy of; the labor is more than Herculean; the filth of 
that Augean stable is in my opinion too great to be cleared away 
even by your skill and industry." 

Paul Jones made Mr. Morris his executor, and bequeathed him 
as a token of his high regard, the sword he had received from the 
King of France. Mr. Morris gave it to Commodore Barry, with 
a request that it should fall successively into the hands of the 
oldest commander of the American Navy. 

The Marquis de Chastellux, was in the United States, in 1780, 
1781, and 1782, a Major General in the French Army, serving 
under the Count de Rochambeau. In a book of Travels of which 
he is the author, (a work well worthy of being more generally 
known than it is,) he gives the following account of Mr. Morris. 
He visited him at his house in Philadelphia: — 

" He was a very rich merchant, and consequently a man of everj' country, for 
commerce bears every where the same character. Under monarchies, it is free; it is 
an egotist in republics; a stranger, or if you will, a citizen of the universe, it excludes 
alike the virtues and the prejudices that stand in the way of its interests. It is scarcely 
to be credited, that amidst the disasters of America, Mr. Morris, the inhabitant of a 
town just emancipated from the hands of the English, should possess a fortune of eight 
millions, (between three and four hundred thousand pounds, sterling.) It is, however, 
in the most critical times, that the greatest fortunes are acquired. The fortunate return 
of several ships, the still more successful cruises of his privateers, have increased his 
riches beyond his expectations, if not beyond his wishes. He is, in fact, so accustomed 



'^ Mr. Morris anxious to enlist the feelings of the Chevalier and secure his co-opera- 
tion, took him into his carriage and was proceeding to Elk, when they met on the 
road, an express rider. Mr. Morris called out to him and enquired for whom he had 
despatches? "For Robert Morris," he replied. On opening the paper, it proved to 
be the announcement that the French frigates had arrived in the Delaware with the 
specie on board! 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 355 

to the success of his privateers, that when he is observed on Sunday to be more 
serious than usual, the conclusion is, that no prize has arrived the preceding week. 
This flourishing state of commerce at Philadelphia, as well as in Massachusetts Bay, is 
entirely owing to the arrival of the French squadron. The English have abandoned all 
their cruises, to block it up at Newport, and in that they have succeeded ill, for they 
have not a single sloop coming to Rhode Island, or Providence. Mr. Morris is a large 
man very simple in his manners; his mind is subtle and acute, his head perfectly well 
organized, and he is as well versed in public affairs as in his own. He was a member 
of Congress in 1776, and ought to be reckoned among those personages who have had 
the greatest influence in the revolution of America. He is the decided friend of Dr. 
Franklin, and the decided enemy of Mr. Read. His house is handsome, resembling 
perfectly the houses in London; he lives there without ostentation, but not without 
expense, for he spares nothing which can contribute to his happiness and that of Mrs. 
MoRKis to whom he is much attached." 

The account of Mr. Morris' wealth, at the period named, is not 
perhaps exaggerated. During the Revolution the commercial 
house in which he continued a partner, was prosecuting a success- 
ful business. The translator of a London edition of the Travels 
of the Marquis de Chastellux, speaks of vast money making facili- 
ties Mr. Morris enjoyed through the French consul, resident in 
Philadelphia, by means of special permits to ship cargoes of flour, 
&c. in a time of general embargoes. At one period, says the 
translator, he circulated his private notes throughout the countiy, 
as cash. 

The close of the Revolution, must have found him in possession 
of immense wealth, exceeding that by far of any individual citizen 
of the United States. But he was destined to a sudden reverse of 
fortune. There followed the Revolution a mania for land specula- 
tion, as great perhaps in porportion to the then number of persons 
to participate in it, as one that has been witnessed in our own 
times. Mr. Morris participated largely in it; investing in large 
tracts of wild land, as they came into market in different parts 
of the United States; realizing for a time vast profits upon sales. 
A reaction ensued, which found him in possession of an immense 
landed estate, and largely in debt for purchase money. From 
the opulence that we have been speaking of, he was reduced to 
poverty; and ultimately, some merciless creditors, made him for a 
long time the tenant of a prison. 

It has been stated that his misfortunes were partly owing to sacri- 
fices he made during his financial agencies in the Revolution. 
This error is corrected in a letter with which the author has been 
favored from a surviving son of his, the venerable Thomas Morris, 



356 HISTORY OF THE 

Esq. a resident of the city of New York: — "My father's pecu- 
niary losses were not owing to his public engagements in the war 
of Independence. Heavy as those engagements were, (the last 
two years of the war having been supported almost entirely by his 
advances and by his credits,) he was eventually reimbursed by the 
public." 

The author has in his posession two autograph letters, from Mr. 
Morris, addressed to "Mr. Benjamin Barton," the father of the late 
Benjamin Barton, Jr. The first, was written but a few weeks 
after the Treaty with the Indians on the Genesee river, at which 
the Indian title was extinguished to all the lands in this state west 
of Phelp's and Gorham's Purchase. It is inserted entire: — 

" Hills, near Philadklphia, Oct. 18, 1797. 

Sir. — I received your letter dated at Newark, the 12th inst. only yesterday, and am 
sorry to see thereby the several unfortunate accidents you have met with, and particu- 
larly as your affairs have become deranged thereby. In consequence of the purchase 
lately made by the Indians, our surveyors, will immediately set to work and survey and 
lay out that country; and as my son Thomas, who lives at Canandaigua, Ontario 
county, will have a principal share in selling lands, and establishing settlements there, 
I think you had better apply to him; but your application will be time enough by or 
before next spring, when he comes to Albany in the winter, to meet the Legislature. 

You did not furnish me with an account of the lumber you sent down, which I wish 
you would do, with tlie cost thereof. 

I am, Sir, Your obt. serv't. ROBERT MORRIS." 

At the date of this letter, he was a "Merchant Prince," living in 
affluence, writing of the purchase and intended sale and settlement 
of vast tracts of land. Upon him had devolved the financiering 
for our country in a period of peril and embarrassment. When 
the army of Washington, unpaid, were lacking food and raiment; 
murmuring as they well might be; it was his purse and credit that 
more than once prevented its dispersion, and the failure of the 
glorious achievement of Independence. His ships were upon the 
ocean, his notes of hand forming a currency, his drafts honored 
every where among capitalists in his own country, and in many of 
the marts of commerce in Europe. 

A reverse of fortune, saddening to those who are now enjoying 
the blessings to which he so eminently contributed — who wish that 
no cloud had gathered around the close of his useful life — inter- 
vened between the dates of the two letters. The second one is 
dated "Philadelphia, Dec. 11, 1800," and after disposing of some 
business enquiries that had been made, closes as follows: — 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 357 

" You have now the clearest information I can give you. I have been frequently 
applied to about this affair, but hope there is an end of it. If liowever, you should find 
it necessary to write again, be good enough to pay the postage of your letters, for / 
have not a cent to spare from the means of subsistence. 

I am, Sir, Your very obt. serv't. 

ROBERT MORRIS. 
Mr. Benjamin Barton, Sussex Co. N. J." 

Mr. Morris died at Morrisania, N. J., Nov. 6th, 1806, aged 
73 years. 



Note. — During the life of Mrs. Morris, she had an annuity of fifteen hundred 
dollars, paid her by the Holland Company, as an equivalent for the release of dower, 
in the lands they purchased of her husband. "This was all that was left of that 
splendid fortune which we have seen to have been lavished in loans for the public 
service, when its return was most doubtful."' Robert Morris was not only connected 
with this region as a primitive proprietor, but the project of the Erie 'Canal was 
promoted by his efforts. 



358 ^ HISTORY OF THE 

AUGUSTUS PORTER. 



Few names were earlier, have been more intimately, and none 
more honorably, associated with the entire history of settlement 
and progress in Western New York, than that of Augustus 
Porter. Entering it in his youth — sitting down in the primitive 
log cabins erected by the first settlers west of the Mussachusetts 
pre-emption line; — going out with compass and chain and trav- 
ersing the wilderness, over hill and dale, the trails of the Indian 
that he occasionally crossed, the only evidences that human advent 
and agency had preceded him; — his rude camp in the fastnesses of 
the forest, pitched upon streams and by the side of springs that 
had flowed and gurgled until then, unknown to his race; — changing 
his wilderness itineracy for a position and agency that equally 
blended him and his name with the primitive settlement of that 
now empire of wealth and substantial prosperity, — "Phelps and 
Gorham's Purchase." Remaining there but to see settlement 
fairly commenced, then coming farther on, first as surveyor and 
then as a settler to prominently participate in pushing settlement 
and improvement to a new field of enterprize — to the western 
boundaries of the Holland Purchase; — he lives to witness the 
mighty change that has been wrought! With a memory and a 
judgment unimpaired by age and more than its usual physical 
infirmities, he yet lives to contribute valuable and essential remin- 
iscences to the Pioneer history of a region he has seen converted 
— and helped to convert — from the hunting grounds of the 
migratory Indian, to the fairest and most prosperous region of our 
Empire State. 

There are few whose days are lengthened out as his have been; 
fewer by far who have had cognizance of, and participation in, so 
extended a period of interesting events in the history of our 
country. Change, progress, the conversion of a wilderness to 
what Western New York now is, in the short space of a little 
over half a century, is a wonder of itself — and how far enhanced 
is the wonder, when in view of the average amount of years that 
are allotted to an active participation in the affairs of this life, we 
listen to, or read the recital of events from a living witness, 
commencing with the earliest advents of our race, in the work of 
settlement and improvement ! 

His studies at school in the years immediately preceding his 



Jc'eV, LUI ^ ij=y Ui; 



7 








^^'T^^t^^^ 



MM%^%^-^^ iF(Q)miriim, 



HOLLAND PURCHASE 359 

majority, were interrupted by a transfer to farm labor, to help 
supply the places of those who had gone out to fill the ranks of 
an army raised by a few feeble colonies struggling for separation 
and Independence. He has lived not only to see a glorious con- 
summation of that struggle, but lives to see those colonies a mighty 
empire of states, fulfilling the highest destinies fondly anticipated 
by its founders. 

The hand that helped to make some of the primitive township 
and farm surveys of the region between the Seneca lake, and the 
east line of the Holland Purchase, — a region now embracing a 
city with over thirty thousand inhabitants; large and prosperous 
villages; dotted throughout its entire length and breadth with 
comfortable farm houses and highly cultivated farms; traversed 
by canals, rail roads and telegraphic wires; — is spared to make a 
record of events of his own times, that in the old world would be 
witnessed but by successive generations, and mark the lapse of 
centuries ! 

Penetrating the wilderness region still farther on — locating at 
the Falls of Niagara, and prominently pioneering in clearing away 
the forest that enshrouded them — in commencing there the work 
of settlement and improvement — in surveying and opening the 
primitive roads; he lives to see there, a prosperous and growing 
village; to see it the termination of rail roads and telegraphs; the 
deep gorge, or basin, into which he has seen the mighty volume 
of water pour but to affright the wild beasts in their favorite 
haunts, spanned by one of the highest perfections of modern art; 
to see where stood the rude, semi-log cabin resting place of an 
occasional visitor, palace-like hotels erected, annually crowded 
by those who throng to the great centre of attraction. 

Where now is a city of over forty thousand inhabitants, the 
great mart of the commerce of prosperous states, he has set down 
and partaken of backwoods fare, in a log-cabin, the only place of 
entertainment. There he has waited for a change of wind, to 
enable him and his companions to coast along the shores of lake 
Erie, in a batteau, over waters then but seldom disturbed but by 
the elements, and the Indian's bark canoe. He lives to see those 
waters whitened by the sails of •commerce; "floating palaces," 
steam-propelled, in fleets, competing for the travel and transpor- 
tation of a young but already extended and prosperous empire of 
the west ! 



360 HISTORY OF THE 

How blended with change, progress, the mighty achievements 
of our age and race, is the name, the reminiscences, of this early 
Pio-neer! The reader will not be surprised that the author has, for 
a few moments, arrested the course of narrative, for comments, 
such as he has indulged in; nor deem it inappropriate, to have 
availed himself of the skill of the artist, to give a faithful portrait 
of his venerable features. 

Judge Porter was born on the 18th of January, 1769; is a 
native of Salisbury, Connecticut; the son of Joshua Porter, who 
was, for fifty years, a practicing physician and surgeon, in that 
town. He died in 1825, at the advanced age of ninety-five years. 
The subject of our brief memoir acquired the rudiments of educa- 
tion in the common school of his native town; his regular attend- 
ance at school being confined, as was the case with most boys of 
New England at that period, to the winter months. In 1786, in 
the sixteenth year of his age, he had the advantage of a few 
month's study of mathematics, and particularly surveying, under 
the tuition of Mr. Nathan Tisdale, of Lebanon. His tutor dying, 
he returned to labor upon his father's farm, remaining under the 
paternal roof until the spring of 1789, when he first started for the 
new field of enterprise, then just opening in Western New York. 
A continuation of the Judge's personal biography, in this form, is 
rendered unnecessary, as it is embraced in a narrative of early 
events, which he has furnished, at the request of the Buflfalo Young 
Men's Association; much of which, as it will be observed, the 
author has transferred to his pages. 

In June 1806, he became a resident of the Holland Purchase — 
locating himself at the Falls of Niagara, where he still resides, at 
the advanced age of eighty years. He may be said to constitute 
a connecting link between two generations — or rather between 
two distinct classes; so far as habits of life are concerned. He is 
. one of the survivors of a race of Pioneers, hardy, industrious and 
frugal; men of iron constitutions they must have been, to encounter 
the hardships and privations of the wilderness. Living now in an 
age of luxury, of increasing effeminacy; surrounded by all the 
comforts of life; with ample means to enjoy its luxuries; he 
emphatically belongs to the old school; preserving the simple, 
frugal habits of his youth and middle age, his habits of industry 
and economy; his love of the substantial and sensible things of this 
life; leaving to those who have acquired wealth through a less 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 361 

rugged path, their choice of show and ostentation. In this respect, 
as well as others, his life and example furnish a useful lesson; a 
protest against the moral and physical degeneracy he lives to 
witness. 

He came to the western country as will have been seen, young; 
with a good New England constitution; healthy and muscular. In 
all of his early life he enjoyed good health; interrupted occasion- 
ally by diseases incident to the climate, and extraordinary expo- . 
sures. In 1843, then seventy-four years of age, he was engaged 
with his laborers, in prying up a stick of timber. Standing himself 
upon the pry, the whole weight of the stick came upon it, throwing 
him off with such violence as to partially break a hip bone; to 
which casualty is to be attributed a present lameness; added to 
which is the troublesome and at times painful infirmity — hernia — 
and a hereditary deafness, that increases with age, and renders the 
use of an ear trumpet essential in ordinary conversation. And yet, 
under all these disabilities, the greater portion of each day, is spent 
in the out-of-door general management of a largely extended and 
varied business.* 

[During the last winter, as a preliminarj- step in the preparation of this work, the 
author called upon Judge Porter for such assistance as his long residence, retentive mem- 
ory, and intelligent observation enabled him to give. He cheerfully and obligingly com- 
plied, and devoted several days to a patient answering of such enquiries as were made 
of him; the author taking notes during the interview. These are principaJly applicable 
of the early settlement of the Holland Purchase, and will be used in a detached form, 
as the necessity of their use occurs. About this period the Judge had been applied to 
by a committee of the Young Men's Association of Buffalo, for historical reminiscences, 
with a view to preservation in the archives oftheir Association; which request he was 
complying with. With his consent, and that of the Association, that portion of his 
written narrative of events, having reference to settlement as it was approaching the 
Holland Purchase, is used by the author. It saved the narrator from travelling twice over 
the same ground, and insured a greater degree of correctness, than could have been 
reUed upon from notes of conversation. The narrative is taken up as it came from his 
hands; with such portions omitted as have been embraced in other forms; that in 
reference to land titles being the principal omission in all that relates to the progress of 
settlement in Western New York.] 



In the year 1789, Capt. Wm. Bacon, Gen. John Fellows, Gen. 
John Ashley, and Elisha Lee, Esq., of Sheffield, Mass., Deacon John 
Adams of Alford, Mass., and my father, having become the pur- 
chasers of Township No. 12. 1st Range (now Arcadia, Wayne 
Co,,) and No. 10, in the 4th Range, (now East Bloomfield, Onta- 

* This is from a note made in the author's memorandum book, a year previous to the 
publication of his work. 



362 HISTORY OF THE 

rio Co.,) then in the county of Montgomery, New York, I entered 
into an agreement with them to go out and survey the tracts. 1, 
accordingly, in pursuance of previous arrangements, made with 
Capt. Bacon, met him at Schenectady, early in May, 1789. Here 
I found Capt. B. had collected some cattle, provisions, and farming 
utensils, for the use of the settlers who were going forward in 
company with Deacon Adams and his family, whom I also met at 
the same place, and who took charge of the cattle. The provis- 
ions were taken into two boats. I assisted in navigating one of 
the boats, each carrying about twelve barrels, and known as 
Schenectady batteaux, and each navigated by four men. Leaving 
Schenectady, we proceeded up the Mohawk to Fort Stanwjx 
(now Rome.) In passing Little Falls of the Mohawk, the boats 
and their contents were transported around on wagons. At Fort 
Stanwix, we carried our boats, &c., over a portage about one 
mile, to the waters of Wood creek. This creek affords but little 
water from the portage to its juncture with the Canada creek, 
(which falls into Wood creek seven miles west of Fort Stanwix.) 
At the portage there was a dam for a saw mill, which created a 
considerable pond. This pond, when filled, could be rapidly dis- 
charged, and on the flood thus suddenly made, boats were enabled 
to pass down. We passed down this stream, which empties into 
Oneida Lake, and through that lake and its outlets to the Three 
River Point, and thence up the Seneca River and the outlet of 
Kanadasaga Lake, (now Seneca Lake,) to Kanadasaga settlement, 
(now Geneva.) The only interruption to the navigation to this 
river and the outlet, occurred at Seneca Falls and Waterloo, (then 
known as Scoys.) At Seneca Falls we passed our boats up the 
stream empty, by the strength of a double crew, our loading being 
taken around by a man named Job Smith, who had a pair of oxen 
and a rudely constructed cart, the wheels of which were made 
by sawing off a section of a log, some two and a half or three 
feet in diameter. At Scoys, we took out about half our load to 
pass, consisting mostly of barrels, which were rolled around the 
rapids. 

From the time we left Fort Stanwix, until we arrived at Kana- 
dasaga, we found no white persons, except at the juncture of 
Canada and Wood creeks, where a man lived by the name of 
Armstrong; — at Three River Point, where lived a Mr. Bingham, 
and at Seneca Falls, where was Job Smith. Geneva was at that 
time the most important Western settlement, and consisted of some 
six or seven families, among whom was Col. Reed, (father of the 
late Rufus Reed, of Erie, Pa.,) Roger Noble and family, of Shef- 
field, Mass., and Asa Ransom, late of Erie county, who had a small 
shop, and was engaged in making Indian trinkets. At Geneva 
we left our boats and cargoes in charge of ('apt. Bacon, who 
had come from Schenectady to Fort Stanwix, on horseback, and 
there took passage on our boats. Joel Steel, Thaddeus Keyes, 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 363 

Orange Woodruff, and myself, took our packs on our backs, and 
followed the Indian trail, over to Canandaigua. 

At Canandaigua, (then called Kanandarque) we found Gen. 
Chapin, Daniel Gates, Joseph Smith, (Indian interpreter) Benjamin 
Gardner and family, Frederick Saxton, (Surveyor) and probably 
some half a dozen others, all of whom except Smith and Gardner 
had come on with Gen. Chapin, some ten or fifteen days before, 
in boats from Schenectady, by Fort Stanwix, Wood creek, Oneida 
Lake, «fec., and up the Canandaigua outlet, into the lake itself. 
This is the only instance to my knowledge of the ascent of boats 
for transportation so high up; the ordinary point of landing, after- 
wards, being at Manchester, seven miles down. The only houses 
m Canandaigua were of logs. One occupied by Gen. Chapin near 
the outlet; one a little further north, on the rising ground occu- 
pied by Smith, and one by Gardner near the old Antis house, as 
at present known; and the other on the lot where Oliver Phelps' 
house stands, which had been built the fall before by Mr. Walker, 
an agent of Mr. Phelps. In this house, Caleb Walker, his 
brother, died in 1790, and was the first person buried in the grave- 
yard at Canandaigua. 

From Canandaigua, I went to township, No. 10, in the 4th Range 
(now East Bloomfield,) where I found Jonathan Adams, one of the 
proprietors of the town, who had come on from Schenectady with 
cattle and horses, accompanied by his large family, consisting of 
the following persons; himself and wife, his sons, John, William, 
Abner, and Joseph; his sons-in-law, Ephraim Rew, and Lorin Hull, 
and their wives, (his daughters) Wilcox, another son-in-law, and a 
younger daughter, afterwards the wife of John Keyes; Elijah 
Rose a brother-in-law, wife and son, and the following named 
persons: Moses Gunn, Lot Rew, John Barns, Roger Sprague, 
Asa Heacock, Benjamin Goss, John Keyes, Nathaniel Norton, 
and Eber Norton. Here Mr. Adams had erected two small log 
houses, and one large one, in which for the time being, all these 
people found a shelter. Mr. Adams in compliance with an 
arrangement with the proprietors, furnished me with the necessary 
hands and provisions to fit out my surveying party, and I then 
commenced to survey the town. 

After finishing the survey of this township, Fredrick Saxton and 
myself, surveyed and allotted township 9, in 6th Range, (now 
Livonia, Livingston Co.,) which proved to be one of the best town- 
ships of land in the Genesee country. To show however, the 
inconsiderable value put upon it at that time, I mention the fact 
that Gen. Fellows offered to sell the whole township to Mr. Saxton 
and myself at twenty cents per acre. 

After completing the survey of this township, Mr. Saxton 
assisted me in the survey of township No. 12, 1st Range, 
(Arcadia, Wayne Co.) Col. Hugh Maxwell, a surveyor, had con- 
tracted with Phelps and Gorham, the previous year, to run out 



364 HISTORY OF THE 

into townships the whole of that part of their purchase to which 
the Indian title had been extinguished. Not having completed 
the work, he entered into an agreement with Mr. Saxton and 
myself, to survey a portion, consisting of about forty townships, 
which now constitute part of Steuben county. We entered 
immediately on this survey, and completed it in the course of the 
season. While engaged in it we made our head quarters at Painted 
Post on the Conhocton river, at the house of old Mr. Harris and 
his son William. These two men, Mr. Goodhue who lived near 
by, and a Mr. Meade, two miles up the river, at the mouth of a 
stream since known as "Meade's creek," were the only persons 
then on the territory we were surveying. Before we left, how- 
ever, Solomon Bennet, Mr. Stevens, Capt. Jameson, and Mr. 
Crosby, arrived from Pennsylvania in search of a township for 
purchase and for future settlement, and fixed on township No. 3 
in the 5th, and No. 4 in the 6th, Ranges, both lying on the Canisteo 
river, and soon after settled by these men. They are now known 
in whole or in part as the town of Canisteo. 

In tiie fall 1 returned to my father's, in Salisbury, by the water 
route, in company with several persons from New England, who, 
having spent the summer at the west, were returning home to 
spend the winter. 

In addition to the persons mentioned by me as found at Canan- 
daigua, in the spring of this year, (1789) the following came during 
the summer, viz: Abner Barlow, Israel Chapin, Jr., Othniel 
Taylor, Nathaniel Gorham, Dr. Moses Atwater, Judah Colt, John 
Call, Amos Hall, Gen. Wells, John Clark, Daniel Brainard, John 
Fanning, Stephen Bates, Aaron Heacock, James Fisk, Jairus Rose, 
Hugh Jameson, Mr. Truman, Orange Brace, Martin Dudley, and 
Luther Cole. The following came to Victor: Hezekiah Bough- 
ton, Jr., Enos Boughton, Jared Boughton, Seymour Boughton, 2d, 
Lyman Boughton, Zebulon Norton, Joel Scudder, Mr. Smith, 
and Mr. Brace. Into Bristol: Gamaliel Wilder, Jonathan Wilder, 
Wm. Gooding, Elnathan Gooding. Into Geneva: Roger Noble, 
Phineas Stevens, Elias Jackson, Mr. Jennings, Wm. Patterson, 
Peter Bortle. To Palmyra: Gen. John Swift. To Pittsford: Israel 
Stone, Simon Stone, Paul Richardson, Mr. Allen, and Mr. Acker. 
To Irondequoit Landing: Mr. Lusk. To Brighton: Orange Stone 
and Chauncey Hyde, Capt. John Gilbert from Lenox, Mass. 
(father of John Gilbert, now of Ypsilanti, Mich.) who surveyed 
the town into lots. To Perrinton; Glover Perrin and Caleb 
Walker. To Livonia: Solomon Woodruff. To Avon: Timothy 
Hosmer, Gilbert Berry, Capt. Thompson, and Mr. Rice (whose 
wife gave birth to the first child born on the Phelps and Gorham 
Purchase, whose name was "Oliver Phelps Rice.") To Vienna: 
Decker Robinson. To Middle ton: (at the head of Canandaigua 
lake.) Col. Clarke, Capt Watkins^ Lieut. Cleveland, and Ensign 
Parrish. To Lima: Abner Miles and Doctor Minor. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 365 

Among the incidents of this year (1789) in this western region, 
then just beginning to be inhabited, was the following: A Mr. 
Jenkins, who went out for the proprietors, John Swift and others, 
to survey township 12, 2d range, (Palmyra) commenced his labors 
early in the season, and erected for the accommodation of his party 
a small hut of poles. One night, when the party were asleep, two 
Indians attacked them, first firing Iheir rifles through the open 
cracks of the hut, and then rushing in. One of Jenkins' men was 
killed by the first fire, but Jenkins and his party after a brief strug- 
gle, succeeded in driving the savages off" without further loss. He 
went the next morning to Geneva, where he learned that the party 
to which they probably belonged had gone south. He accordingly, 
in company with others, followed in pursuit, as far as Newtown, 
(Elmira) on the Chemung river, near which place tlie murderei's 
were captured. Newtown was then the principal, indeed almost 
only settlement, in that region of country. The Indians were 
examined before an informal assembly, and the proof being in their 
opinion, sufficient to establish their guilt, the question arose as to 
how they should be disposed of. The jail of the county, (then 
Montgomery) was at Johnstown, and it was not deemed practicable 
to transport them so great a distance, through an Indian wilderness. 
It was therefore determined summarily to execute them, and this 
determination was carried immediately into effect, — an account of 
which I received from Jasper Parrish and Horatio Jones (after- 
wards Indian interpreters) who were eye witnesses of the execu- 
tion.* Another incident occured at Canandaigua this year, worthy, 
perhaps, of notice. 

The year was one of unusual scarcity among the Indians. 
Indeed, they were almost reduced to starvation. Oliver Phelps 
having made a treaty with them the year previous, they were to 

* The narrator will be gratified to learn that his recollections of an event that trans- 
pired almost sixty years since, are mainly corroborated by printed, cotemporary record, 
as will be seen by an extract of a letter published in the Maryland Journal of April 
14th, 1789, dated at Wyoming, March 27th, 1789:— "Major John Jenkins, Solomon 

Earl, Baker, and WilHam Ransom, about the 10th instant, were surveying 

lands near the Lakes. One morning about 2 o'clock, four Tuscarora Indians, and a 
squaw, made an attack upon them in their cabin. The Indians put the muzzles of 
their guns into the cabin and each fired. Baker was killed and Earl badly wounded. 
This awoke Jenkins and Ransom: the Indians rushed on with the knife and tomahawk, 
but Jenkins by an instantaneous effort of bravery, caught hold of an axe and knocked 
down two Indians; afterwards Ransom assisted and beat the Indians off, and took 
each of their guns, tomahawks, &c. Jenkins and his surviving companion lodged that 
night in said cabin with the dead and wounded; next day they returned with Earl to 
Geneva. A scout was immediately sent after the said Indians. When the party arrived 
at the cabin they found the Indians had been back and taken off all their provisions; the 
object of this bloody attack. Four Indians are sent in quest of the villians, and have 
pledged their honor they will not return without their bodies, or their scalps. God 
preserve their honor!" So it seems that Baltimore was the place to look for news of 
local events in Western New York, at one period. Mr. Boughton, who is introduced 
in a subsequent page, says, that when he arrived at the foot of Seneca lake in Februar)- 
1790, he "saw there the man that was shot at Palmyra; the ball had gone through 
his jaw." 



360 HISTORY OF THE 

meet him this year to receive their stipulated annuities. As is 
usual on such occasions, presents were provided for distribution 
among them, as w^ell as articles of subsistence, of which it was 
known they stood in great need. The number of Indians assem- 
bled, however, greatly exceeded his expectations, (increased, doubt- 
less, by their starving condition,) amounting, propably, to two 
thousand. The stock of provisions proving inadequate to their 
wants, they were driven to the necessity of devouring every thing 
that could satisfy their hunger, consuming with voracity even the 
entrails of the animals that had been slaughtered. They parted 
with almost every thing they had to purchase food, and did not 
disperse until they had nearly produced a famine among the white 
inhabitants. Another occurrence of this season was the opening 
of a road, from Geneva to Canandaigua, which was the first piece 
of road opened west of Westmoreland (now Oneida,) county. 
The winter of 1789-90, I spent at my father's in copying my field 
notes, and finishing up my surveys. 

During the winter of 1789-90, 1 entered into an agreement with 
Gen. John Fellows, one of the proprietors of East Bloomfield, to 
join him in the erection of a saw-mill, on Mud creek, in that town, 
about five miles west of Canandaigua. In pursuance of this plan, 
we collected at Schenectady a stock of provisions, tools, &c,, 
necessary for the purpose. In May, I embarked again at Schenec- 
tady, for the west, taking with me these articles, and proceeded by 
nearly the same route as in the previous year, except that I passed 
up the Canandaigua outlet to Manchester, now called, and thence 
transported my loading by teams to East Bloomfield. One of my 
companions in this expedition was Dr. Daniel Chapin, who resided 
many years in Bloomfield, and afterwards removed to Buffalo, 
where he died, — also Oliver Chapin and Aaron Taylor and family. 
I have heretofore remarked that the mode adopted to render 
Wood creek navigable, was to collect the water by means of a mill 
dam, thus creating a sudden flood to carry boats down. Sometimes 
boats did not succeed in getting through to deep water in one flood, 
and were consequently obliged to await a second one. As we 
were coming down the creek during the voyage on our first flood, 
we overtook a boat which had been grounded after the previous 
one, the navigators of which were in the water, ready to push her 
off" as soon as the coming tide should reach them. Among these 
persons, was James Wadsworth, of Geneseo, with whom I then 
first became acquainted. He was then on his way west, to occupy 
his property at Geneseo, which has since become so beautiful and 
valuable an estate. Gen. Fellows set out for Bloomfield on horse- 
back, having sent on a team, (two yoke of oxen and a wagon,) 
with a moderate load, and four or five cows. These were driven 
on by some person coming on to assist in building the mill, and 
among them, Mr. Dibble, the millwright. Gen. F. parted with the 
wagon near Utica. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 367 

During the previous winter, the legislature of New York had 
appropriated a township of land (called " the Road township ") 
situated in what is now called Madison county, the proceeds of 
which were to be applied to opening a road west from Westmore- 
land. The job had been taken by contract, and Gen. Fellows 
found the party cutting out the road not far from the present settle- 
ment at Onondaga. After Gen, F. reached Bloomfield, fearing 
that the team might not be able to get through with the materials 
for the mills, dispatched me back to meet the party, and help them 
along. At Cayuga lake I met Mr. Dibble, the millwright, from 
whom I learned that the team had left its load at Onondaga, and 
that the men with the cattle and wagons were coming on with a 
large number of settlers, as fast as the persons employed in opening 
the road, with their assistance, progressed with the work. I, 
therefore, concluded to return to Manchester and take the boat 1 
had left there and go to Onondaga for the loading. Taking Mr. 
Dibble and three other men with me, I went to Onondaga and 
returned with the loading. The men and the teams of the party 
reached Bloomfield at about the same time we did. I spent the 
summer chiefly in attending to the erection of the saw-mill, 
occasionally doing some surveying, particularly town 13, 4th 
range, (now Penfield, Monroe Co.) which had been purchased of 
Phelps and Gorham by Jonathan Fasset. The mill was finished in 
the fall, and was, I believe, the third one erected on Phelps and 
Gorham' s Purchase. 

In Dec. of this year, (1790) I went, in company with Orange 
Brace and two other persons, on foot, to Connecticut. The 
journey was a tedious and painful one, being made through a deep 
snow the whole distance, a part of which was accomplished on 
snow shoes. The following are some of the persons who came 
into the country during this year, viz: To Canandaigua: Nathan- 
iel Sanburn, Lemuel Castle, Seth Holcomb. To Victor: Heze- 
kiah Boughton, Senr., Seymour Boughton, Senr. To Bristol: 
Deacon Codding, Francis Codding and Ephraim Wilder. To 
Pittstown, (now Richmond:) Peter, Gideon, William and Samuel 
Pitts. To Geneseo: James Wads worth and William Wadsworth. 
To West Bloomfield. Benjamin Gardner, (from Canandaigua,) 
Robert Taft, Mr. Miller, Clark Peck, Esq. Curtis, Jasper P. Shears, 
Nathan Marvin, Lorin Wait, Amos Hall. To Avon: Gad 
Wadsworth, Mr. Ganson. To Farmington: oldMr. Comstock, and 
his sons Jai'ed, Darius, John, Otis, and Isaac Hathaway. During 
the session of the Legislature in 1789-90, a law was passed erect- 
the county of Ontario, to consist of all that portion of the state 
lying west of the Eastern line of Phelps and Gorham's Purchase. 
This was the first county set off from Montgomery. The follow- 
mg were the officers appointed: Oliver Phelps, first Judge; Timothy 
Hosmer, (afterwards himself first Judge) Arnold Potter, and Israel 
Chapin, side Judges; Judah Colt, Sheriff; Nathaniel Gorham, Clerk. 



368 HISTORY OF THE 

I spent a part of the winter of 1790-91 at my Father's, and in 
February I left again for the west. I made the journey in com- 
pany with John Fellows, son of Gen. Fellows, and two others, 
in a two horse sleigh. At that time, the only white settlements 
between Westmoreland and the Seneca Lake, were at Onondaga 
Hollow, where Gen. Danforth and Comfort Tyler had settled, 
and at what is now Eldridgc, Cayuga Co., where Mr. Buck had 
located himself On this journey we encamped for the night in a 
fine hemlock grove, on the east side of Owasco outlet, where 
Auburn now stands. 

During the early part of this season (1791) in carrying on the 
saw mill, and making improvements on land, with occasional sur- 
veying, I became acquainted, for the fa'st time, with Oliver 
Phelps. This was an important event in my life at the west, for 
it led not only to my permanent and steady employment for 
more than ten years, (first for Phelps and Gorham, but always 
under the direction of Mr. P. himself,) during which I became 
familiar with most of the transactions relating to land sales, sur- 
veys, 6z:c., but was followed by a personal intimacy with him. 
from which I derived many important advantages. His friendship 
for, and confidence in me, never faltered, and I have consequently 
always retained the highest personal respect for his name and 

memory. 

******* 

On the 12th of May, 1788, Mr. Phelps, accompanied by Col. 
Hugh Maxwell, a Revolutionary officer, of Heath, Mass., as sur- 
veyor, then fifty-seven years old — and William Walker, of Lenox, 
as assistant, proceeded to Kanadasaga, (now Geneva) for the 
purpose of making arrangements for holding a ti'eaty with the 
Indians for the purchase of the possessory right to the whole or a 
part of the territory. On arriving at Kanadasaga, he found the 
Indians assembled in council with John Livingston, of Columbia 
Co., and Caleb Benton, of Greene Co., who represented a com- 
pany known at that time as " the Lessee Company," for the lease 
of the tract lying immediately east of the Massachusetts claim. 
Mr. Phelps at once commenced negotiations, but as the Indians 
were not very numerously represented, furl her proceedings were 
adjourned to a treaty agreed to be held at Buflfalo about the last 
of June. This treaty was held at Buffalo in pursuance of this 
adjournment. Mr. Phelps was anxious to purchase all their lands 
within the Massachusetts pre-emption claim. But the Indians were 
unwilling to sell any part of the country west of the Genesee 
river, alledging that "the Great Spirit" had fixed that stream as 
the boundary between the white and the red man. 

Mr. Pheljis, finding them quite immoveable on this point, then 
represented to them that he was very desirous of getting some 
land west of the river, at the great Falls, for the purpose of 
building thereon mills, for the use and convenience of the white 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 369 

settlers coming into the country, and that these mills, when built, 
would be very convenient for the Indians themselves. The hidi- 
ans then asked him how much land he wanted for his Mill Seat. 
He replied that he thought a piece about twelve miles wide, exten- 
ding from Canawagas village, on the west side of the river to its 
mouth (about twenty-eight miles) would answer his purpose. To 
this the Indians replied that it seemed to be a good deal of land 
for a Mill Seat, but as they supposed the Yankees knew best what 
was required, they would let him have it. After the treaty Wcis 
concluded, the Indians told Mr. Phelps, that it being customary 
for them to give to the man with whom they dealt, a name, they 
would give him one. They also said they should expect from him 
"a treat" and a walking staff (meaning some spirits,) to help them 
home. The name they gave Mr. Phelps, on this occasion, was 
that by which he was ever afterwards known among them, viz: 
Scaw-gun-se-ga, which translated, is "the Great Fall." This 
purchase, which comprised what is now the city of Rochester, was 
thereafter called "the Mill Seat Tract. "* 

The result of this treaty was the purchase of this Mill Seat Tract, 
and the whole of the eastern portion of the Massachusetts claim, 
bounded as follows: North by lake Ontario: East by the east line 
of the Massachusetts claim (which passes through a part of the Sen- 
eca lake at Geneva); south by the Pennsylvania north line; and 
west by the Genesee river, as far as the mouth of the Canascraga 
creek, and by a line running due south to the Pennsylvania line. 
The lands thus purchased at this treaty, I shall hereafter have occa- 
sion to refer to as "Phelps and Gorham's Indian Purchase." 

At the same time the Lessee Company concluded their arrange- 
ments with the Indians, renting from them, for 999 years the tract 
lying east of Phelps and Gorham's purchase. The object of this 
company in taking their conveyance from the Indians in the form 
of a lease, was to evade the pre-emptive right It was, however, 
so palpable a fraud on that right, that the State of New York at 
once refused to recognize it, and it was declared void by the Legis- 
lature at its next session. The lands were subsequently appro- 
priated by the State of New York to the payment of military 
bounties, and hence have since been known as the Military Tract. 
The agents of the Lessee Company, Messrs. Livingston and Benton, 
at this treaty, rendered important services in aiding Mr. Phelps in 
his negociations, and received from him two townships of lands in 
what is now Yates county, which were afterwards known as "the 
Lessee Townships," one of which is now named "Benton," after 
the grantee above mentioned. 

Messrs. Phelps and Gorham and the Lessees, as soon as their 
treaties were concluded, determined at once to send surveyors to 
run out the line which was to divide their property on the east line 

*'♦ Its contents are about 200,000 acres." 
24 



370 HISTORY OF THE 

of the Massachusetts claim. Geneva was then a small settlement 
beautifully situated on the bank of Seneca lake, rendered quite 
attractive from its lying adjoining an old Indian settlement, in M^hich 
was an orchard. This orchard had been destroyed by Gen. Sul- 
livan, in his celebrated campaign, in 1779, but sprouts had grown 
up from it into bearing trees. As it was known the line must pass 
near this place, some anxiety was felt as to which party it might 
belong. Col. Maxwell, on the part of Phelps and Gorham, and Mr. 
Jenkins on the part of the Lessees, as surveyors, proceeded to the 
point of beginning at the 82d mile stone, on the north line of Penn- 
sylvania, and ran through to lake Ontario a line known as the Pre- 
emption line, which passed about a mile and a quarter west of 
Geneva, and which was the basis of the surveys, made by Phelps 
and Gorham. This line afterwards was proved to have been incor- 
rectly run, and it was charged that the incorrectness was in part a 
fraud of Jenkins, whose object was to secure to his employers, the 
Lessee Company, the location of Geneva. The suspicion of fraud 
led to a re-survey of this line, under the direction of Robert Morris.* 
The line being run, Col. Maxwell commenced immediately the sur- 
vey of the tract west of it, and in the course of the season run out 
about thirty townships and began the survey and allotment of 
Canandaigua. 

The supposition was quite common, that on ascertaining the 
western boundary of the Massachusetts claim (being the east line 
of the New York and Massachusetts cession to the United States) 
it would be found to include the harbor and town of Presque Isle 
(now Erie, Pa.) The state of Pennsylvania was anxious to 
secure to itself that point, and in the winter of 1788-89 had made 
propositions to Phelps and Gorham for the purchase of it. At the 
request of Phelps and Gorham, the U. S. Government sent out 
the Surveyor General, Andrew Ellicott, in 1789, for the purpose 
of running and establishing this line. Fi'ederick Saxton went with 
him on behalf of Phelps and Gorham. As the line was to 
commence at the west end of Lake Ontario, there was some 
hesitation in the outset in determining whether it should commence 
at the western extremity of Burlington Bay, or at the Peninsula 
separating the Bay from the lake. But it was at length fixed 
at the Peninsula, and on the completion of the survey, by first 
running some distance south, and then ofl!setting around the east 
end of lake Erie, it was found to pass some twenty miles east of 
Presque Isle. This line now forms the western boundary of the 
State of New York, between lake Erie and the old north line of 
Pennsylvania, and is the Eastern line of a tract knowTi as the 

* This re-survey was made by Andrew Ellicott, United States surveyor General, assis- 
ted by Judgre Porter. It corrected the previous survey, by establishing the line about as 
far east of Geneva as that had west of it. The care taken in this last survey was well 
calculated to ensure correctness, and in fact its correctness was never questioned. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 371 

••Fresque Isle triangle," which was afterwards purchased by 
Pennsylvania of the United States, and is now a part of that State. 

After the conclusion of the Indian treaty at Buffalo, in 1788, 
and as soon as the progress of surveys would permit, Ph(3lps and 
Gorham commenced making sales, and up to the middle of the 
year 1789, had sold some thirty or forty townships, receiving small 
payments, chiefly in Massachusetts final settlement notes, with an 
understanding that future payments, might be made in the same 
securities at par. It was in consequence of this system of sales, 
that they were so large. 

In consequence of the adoption of the Constitution of the 
United States, not long after the purchase by Phelps and Gorham, 
it was anticipated that the General Government would assume the 
indebtedness of the several states growing out of the Revolution. 
The effect of this was to make the holders of the State securities 
less willing to sell at low rates, so that Messrs. Phelps and 
Gorham, instead of being able to continue to sell rapidly, for this 
species of payment, sold comparatively little after about the middle 
of 1789; and during the year 1790, Congress did, in fact, assume 
the payment of certain State debts, among which were included 
these Massachusetts final settlement notes. The consequence of 
this assumption was to raise them at once to par, and even above. 

Having failed to make the payment of the installment due to 
Massachusetts in 1789 — 90, the state commenced a suit against 
Phelps and Gorham and their sureties. Phelps and Gorham were, 
however, enabled to effect a compromise with the State, by which 
it was agreed that P. and G. should re-convey to Massachusetts all 
that portion of their purchase to which they had not extinguished 
the Indian title, viz: All west of the Genesee river up to the 
mouth of the Canascraga, and thence due south to the Pennsyl- 
vania line, except the mill seat tract above mentioned, and retain 
to themselves the remainder, supposed to be about one-third of the 
whole, paying therefor a sum proportioned to the amount retained. 
It being understood that the final settlement notes were worth only 
four shillings on the pound when the purchase was made, the 
amount to be paid was to be estimated on that basis. This agree- 
ment was carried into effect in 1790, or thereabouts. 

Meantime, the rise of these public state securities, which had pre- 
vented Phelps and Gorham from fulfilling their contract with Mass- 
achusetts, in like manner, prevented the early purchasers under them 
frofti making their payments. Consequently, a considerable part of 
these lands sold, reverted to Phelps and Gorham in after years, 
or were bought by Oliver Phelps, and sold by him to other persons. 

[The portion of Judge Porter's manuscript omitted here — several pages — has 
reference principally to surveys in which he participated, connected with the bounda- 
ries of Phelps and Gorham's purchase, its sub-divisions, — and to matters necessarily 
connected with our chain of land titles.] 



372 HISTORY OF THE 

111 the spring of 1794, I again returned to Canandaigua, arid was 
employed during the whole season in making surveys of various 
tracts for Mr. Phelps. In the fall I again returned with him to 
Sutfield, where I spent part of the winter, and the remainder with 
him in New York, where he eftected his large land sale to De 
Witt Clinton, and other large sales to other persons. 

During the summer of 1794, the court house of Ontario county 
was erected at Canandaigua. Thaddeus Chapin came this year to 
Canandaigua. 

In the spring of 1795, I again left Suffield for Canandaigua. At 
Salisbury I was joined by my brother, Peter B. Porter, who had 
decided to settle at Canandaigua, in the practice of the law. 
During this season I acted as agent for Mr. Phelps in the manage- 
ment and sale of his lands, and in surveying for him. In the latter 
part of August, this year, I went to Presque Isle (now Erie Pa.) in 
company with Judah Colt. At this time all that part of the state 
of New York, lying west of "Phelps and Gorham's Indian 
Purchase," was still occupied by the Indians, their title to it not 
being yet extinguished. There was of course no road leading from 
Buffalo eastward, except an Indian trail, and no settlement what- 
ever on that trail. We traveled on horseback from Canawagus 
(now Avon,) to Buffalo, and were two days in performing the 
journey. At Buffalo there lived a man of the name of Johnstone, 
the British Indian interpreter, — also a Dutchman and his family, 
by the name of Middaugh, and an Indian trader by the name of 
Winne. From Buffalo we proceeded to Chippewa, U. C. where 
we found Capt. Wm. Lee, with a small row-boat, about to start 
for Presque Isle, and waiting only for assistance to row the boat. 
Mr. Colt, Mr. Joshua Fairbanks, now of Lewiston, and myself, 
joined him. Two days of hard rowing brought us to that place 
where we found surveyors engaged in laying out the village, now 
called Erie. Also a military company under the command of Gen. 
Irwin, ordered there by the Governor of the state, to protect the 
surveyors against the Indians. Col. Seth Reed, (father of Rufus 
S. Reed, and grandfather of Charles M. Reed,) was there with 
his family, living in a marquee, having just arrived.* A Mr. 
Reese, was also there, acting as agent for the "Population Com- 
pany,'' for selling and managing their lands, of whom Mr. Colt 
and I purchased two thousand acres. We returned in the same 
boat to Chippewa, and from thence on horseback by way of 
Queenston, on the Indian trail through Tonawanda Indian village 
to Canandaigua. 

During this expedition from Buffalo to Erie, a very remarkable 

'It would appear by the date of Judge Porter's visit to Erie, that Deacon Chamberlin 
was in error as to the year he was there. Mr. Fairbanks, who married the daughter of 
Col. Reed, agrees with Judge Porter as to the period of his settlement at Erie. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 373 

circumstance presented itself, the like of which I had never before 
seen, nor have I since witnessed. Before starting from Buffalo, we 
had been detained there for two days by a heavy fall of rain, 
accompanied by a strong northeast gale. When off" Cattaragus 
creek, on our upward passage, about one to two miles from land, 
we discovered, some distance ahead, a white strip on the surface 
of the lake, extending out from the shore as far as we could see. 
On approaching this white strip, we found it to be some five or six 
rods wide, and its whole surface covered with fish of all the vari- 
eties common to the lake, lying on their sides as if dead. On 
touching them, however, they would dart below the surface, but 
immediately rise again to their former position. We commenced 
taking them by hand, making our selection of the best; and finding 
them perfectly sound, we took in a good number (indeed, if we had 
desired, we might have loaded our boat with them.) On reaching 
Erie, we had some of them cooked and found them perfectly good. 
The position of these fish on their sides in the water placed their 
mouths partly above and partly below the surface, so that they 
seemed to be inhaling both water and air, for at each effort in 
inhaling, bubbles would rise and float on the water. It was th(?se 
bubbles that caused the white appearance on the lake's surface. I 
have supposed that these fish had. from some cause, growing out 
of the extraordinary agitation of the lake by the gale from the 
eastward, and the sudden reflux of water from west to east, after 
it subsided, been thrown together in this way, and from some 
unknown natural cause, had lost the power of regulating their spe- 
cific gravity, which it is said they do, by means of an air bladder, 
furnished them by nature. I leave to others, however, to explain 
this phenomenon. 

During this season, (1795) Nathaniel W. Howell, of Canandaigua, 
and Gen. Vincent Mathews, late of Rochester, first came to Can- 
andaigua to attend court, their residence being, at that time, at 
Newtown, now Elmira. 

In the fall of 1796, I returned to Suffield, and spent most of the 
winter in making up my surveys and maps of the Reserve, and in 
closing up my business with the Connecticut Land Co., having 
concluded not to remain longer in their service, although they 
were desirous I should. But as I had now a family, and had spent 
most of my time for seven years in the fatigues and hardships of a 
woods life, I determined to settle at Canandaigua and accept the 
agency oflTered me by Mr. Phelps, of his land business. In accor- 
dance with this determination, in the latter part of February, 1797, 
I left Suffield with my family, in a sleigh for Canandaigua, where 
I arrived early in March. I immediately entered into the service 
of Mr. Phelps, in selling and surveying his lands, and in collecting 
his debts. One of the first acts of my agency was to sell three or 



374 HISTORY OF THE 

four farms on the road leading north towards Farmington. In 
running them out as it was necessary I should, I caught a severe 
cold in the swamps through which I was obliged to make my way 
by wading. From this circumstance I date the commencement of 
my deafness, which has since so much afflicted me. 

During the winter past, (of 1797,) Gideon King and Zadock 
Granger, two of the proprietors of the tract of 20,000 acres in the 
north part of township one, short range, (which included the land 
on which Rochester now stands,) and two or three other families 
fj'om Suffield. had gone to the tract and commenced thereon a 
settlement. Mr. Phelps, my brother Peter B., and myself, were 
also proprietors. This 20,000 acre tract was sold originally by 
Phelps and Gorham, in 1790, to a company of gentlemen of Spring- 
field and Northampton, Massachusetts, among whom was Ebenezer 
Hunt, Quartus Pomeroy and Justin Ely. The tract was bounded 
north and west by the north and west lines of the township, east 
by the Genesee river, and south by a line parallel with the north 
line, so far distant therefrom as to contain 20,000 acres, excepting 
and reserving therefrom 100 acres, which had been previously sold 
to Ebenezer Allan, for the purpose of erecting a mill thereon, 
which one hundred acres was to be located in as near a square 
form as the windings of the river would permit, commencing at 
the centre of the mill, and extending an equal distance up and 
down the river, then back so far as to contain the 100 acres in the 
above form. The lines of this 20,000 acres had been run by 
Frederick Saxton in the summer of 1790. It may not be uninter- 
esting to state here that this 100 acres embraces the most densely 
and valuably built part of the city of Rochester; — and that all the 
titles within it are derived from Allan, who never himself had any 
other known paper title than that which is derived by impUcation 
from the exception above mentioned in Phelps and Gorham's deed 
to the Springfield and Northampton Company. 

I omitted to mention in the proper place, that in returning to Can- 
andaigua, after completing the survey for Robert Morris, in company 
with Joseph Ellicott, we traveled down the lake to Buffalo, chiefly 
on the beach, there being no road, and as yet, none other than an 
Indian trail from Buffalo to Canawagus (now Avon.) There was 
then (1797) but one dwelling house between the two places, which 
was owned by a Mr. Wilbur. It was situated at the point where 
Mr. John Ganson afterwards built a large house, and kept a tavern 
many years, and is about one mile and a half east of Le Roy. 

In 1800, I built a dwelling house in Canandaigua, opposite the 
Academy, .in which I resided until the year 1806, when, on remov- 
ing with my family to this place, I sold it to John Greig, Esq., by 
whom it was occupied many years. Here, except during the war 
of 1812, I have continuously resided. In 1813, an invasion by the 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 37^ 

British troops took place, which resulted in laying all the settle- 
ments on the frontier, Buffalo included, in ashes. My dwelling, 
mills, &c,, at this place, shared in the common desolation. The 
alledged justification of this system of warfare, was the burning of 
Newark, (now Niagara) by troops of the United States, under the 
command of Gen. George McClure, on his evacuating Fort George, 
a few weeks previous. 

During the last years of my residence in Canandaigua, I was 
interested with Mr. Phelps and Nathaniel and Birdseye Norton, in 
a contract with the United States for the supply of provisions to 
the garrisons of Niagara, Detroit, Mackinaw, Chicago, and Fort 
Wayne. This connection with Mr. Phelps, continued until his 
death, which occurred in the winter of 1809. In 1810, I took this 
contract in my own name, and supplied the above posts until 1813, 
except during the period of their occupation by the enemy, after 
the surrender of Detroit, by Gen. Hull. These transactions led to 
my early connection with the commerce of the lakes, some account 
of which is contained in a communication I furnished to the editors 
of the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser, and which was pubhshed in 
that paper under date of 27th March, 1846. 

So much interest appears to have been recently manifested for 
collecting and preservmg the early incidents of western settlement, 
and so many contributions are about to be offered in aid of this 
object, by others, that I think it advisable to leave to them (who 
will no doubt perform the duty far more acceptably than I can,) 
thq task of presenting matters of subsequent occurrence, to the 
close of the last century. My early cotemporaries in western life, 
(with so far as I can learn, two or three soUtary exceptions,) are 
in their graves. On account of my advanced age, and the busy 
though humble part I have borne as one of the very earliest of the 
Pioneers of Western New York, I can well imagine that a record 
of my experience and adventures might be supposed to possess 
some interest with those who are seeking such materials for 
preservation from an actor himself. What I have written, I 
am sensible, will fall very far short of expectation, but I must, in 
justice to myself, say, that it is but the hitherto unwritten remin- 
iscences of a very aged man, prepared without memoranda, and 
without the opportunity, by reference to, and consultation with, a 
soli-tary cotemporary, of quickening my recollection of many 
events, doubtless of some interest, but which have long since faded 
from my memory. Truth is, of course, my aim; and it may be 
supposed I incur some hazard in drawing on my memory alone at 
this late period in life. To this 1 will only say, that having been 
personally an actor and participator in most by far, of the events 
spoken of, I feel a strong degree of confidence in claiming, for this 
simple narrative the concession of at least ordinary authenticity. 

T cannot close what I have to say without expressing the gratitude 
I have ever felt, for the kind and friendly treatment, patronage, and 



376 HISTORY OF THE 

confidence, extended to me on my first arrival in the Genesee 
country in 1789, by many of the most distinguished of the early 
Pioneers. Among these 1 refer with pleasure to the names of Gen. 
Israel Chapin., Judge Oliver Phelps, Judge Nathaniel Gor- 
HAM, Major Adam Hoops, Thomas Morris, Esq. James Wads- 
worth, Esq. and Charles Williamson, Esq, 



TIMOTHY HOSMER. 



The early advent and prominent position held by this gentleman 
as a pioneer in Western New York, as well as his numerous 
descendants, the elder generation of whom may well be classed 
among the junior pioneers, entitles him to some biogaphical notice. 

The subject of this memoir was born in Hartford, Conn., in Sept 
1745. He passed through a course of medical studies with Dr. 
Dickinson in Middletown, and settled in Farmington, in the same 
State, and married his wife, soon after his admission to practice. 

About this period the troubles precursory to the American Revo- 
lution commenced, and he was one of the earliest to resist the 
encroachments of British power. He, together with John Tread- 
well (afterwards Governor of Connecticut,) and one or two others, 
openly proclaimed resistance to oppression in that then loyal 
town, so that they were for some time in great personal peril, from 
the violence of their loyal neighbors; but they persevered in 
retaining their patriotic position, until that town became distin- 
guished for its zeal in the cause of the Revolution. 

Dr. Hosmer early entered the public service as a surgeon of the 
sixth continental regiment. On the appearance of the small pox in 
the army, he was assigned to the charge of the Hospital in Dan- 
bury, and the subjects sent there for inocculation, he being one of 
the few phycians who at that time, were acquainted with the 
practice of inocculation, wherein he was singularly successful. 
He was with the army throughout the struggle on Long Island, 
and on its retreat. 

At the close of the war he retired from the service happy in the 
recollection of the gl-orious result, but poor and pennyless, with a 
growing family dependant on his professional exertions for support. 

His extensive acquaintance formed in the army, rendered him 
personally and professionally known, to most of the families in the 
state, the consequence of which was, that he at once entered into 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 377 

an extensive practice, which continued to the time of his remov- 
ing to Western Nev^^ York. 

He first came into this country in 1789, or '90 and with four 
others, purchased Township No. 10, in the 7th Range, now the 
town of Avon, Livingston county, at one shilling and six pence per 
acre; and in the early part of 1792, he moved with his family to 
the banks of the Genesee river where he remained until his death, 
which 'happened Nov. 29th, 1815, being a few weeks over seventy 
years of age. 

Upon the organization of the county of Ontario he was appointed 
one of the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas for said county, 
and upon Oliver Phelps decUning to accept the office of first Judge 
of that court, he received that appointment, and continued to hold 
that oflice until he arrived at the age of sixty years, when he was 
incapacitated from longer holding the same by the constitution of 
the state. In taking leave of the bench and bar, he received the 
most gratifying testimonials of their respect and kindness. 

The Indians early experienced the benefits of his services in the 
treatment of diseases; for which they were ever grateful: nor is 
their memory of him yet dimmed, for in numerous instances, they 
have manifested their gratitude to his surviving descendants. In 
the wilds of Wisconsin they have cordially greeted the children of 
At-a-gus, (healer of diseases,) by which name he was known. 

He was distinguished for a lively and cheerful disposition, for 
his active benevolence, ready wit and indifference to the acquisition 
of wealth; his professional services were as readily extended to the 
poor and helpless, as to the wealthy; his philanthrophy made all who 
knew him his friends, and it is not known that he ever had a per- 
sonal enemy. He died as he had lived, in peace with all men, and 
in reconciliation with his Creator. 



Note. — A venerable pioneer, an early neighbor of Judge Hosmer, in a few words, 
furnished the author an eulogy to his memory, worthy of record: — "He was" said he, 
"an excellent hearted man; he practised medicine all through the valley; and was kind 
and obliging to all the new settlers." And not forgetting the wife of the Judge, he said 
she was a practical sister of charity and benevolence, in the new settlement. 



378 HISTORY OF THE 



JARED BOUGHTON. 



This gentleman who was an inhabitant of Stockbridge, Mass. in 
the month of July, 1788, started on an exploring expedition to find 
himself a new home in the western country. He attended the 
Indian council at Geneva, in which Phelps and Gorham extin- 
guished the Indian title to their Genesee Purchase. Being satisfied 
with the appearance of the country, but being unable to purchase 
until the country was surveyed, he returned to Stockbridge. His 
brother Enos Boughton who was the clerk and an assistant to 
William Walker, Phelps and Gorham's surveyor, purchased that 
fall, Township No 11, Range 4, of that tract, now the town of 
Victor, Ontario county, at the price of twenty cents per acre. 

In the spring of 1789, Mr. Boughton, his brother Enos Boughton, 
abrother-in law, Horatio Jones, surveyor, and several hired hands, 
went on to the township purchased by Enos. They surveyed it 
into lots and prepared it for retailing. Jared Boughton commenced 
the first improvement made by white labor in this town. He 
cleared the land, raised two acres of buckwheat, sowed three 
acres of wheat, and built a log cabin, on what has since been 
called "Boughton Hill." At the approach of winter the whole 
party returned to Stockbridge, except Jacob Lobdell, who stayed to 
feed and take care of thirteen or fourteen head of cattle belonging 
to the Boughton family. These cattle were wintered on grass cut 
the season before on an old clearing on Boughton Hill, supposed to 
be the site of an ancient Indian village.* 

In February, 1790, Mr. Boughton started from Stockbridge for 
his new home, with his wife, two children and his younger brother 
Seymour Boughton, as an assistant on the journey and to return 
with the horses and sleigh. After a long and fatiguing journey 
through an uninhabited wilderness, in which formidable obstacles 
were to be surmounted, they arrived at Boughton Hill on the 7th 
day of March. This was the first white family, and Mrs. Bough- 
ton and her infant daughter Malania, were the first white females 
who settled in the town of Victor, and Mrs. Boughton's second son 
Frederick was the first white child born in that town; his birth 
was on the first of June next after their arrival: — 

* See " Gaosaehgaah," in account of De Nonville's expedition, p. 151. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 379 

" I will give you my own experience of settling a new country, 
which has probably been similar to that of hundreds of others. 
I came from Stockbridge with my family in the winter of 1790, in 
a sleigh, by the way of Schenectady, At Utica thei'e was a 
small frame store, old John Post, an Indian trader — and a large 
log house kept as a tavern. There were one or two families, the 
Blackmores, at Westmoreland. Two or three families between 
Westmoreland and Utica — Esquire Blackman's was the last house 
until we arrived at Oneida Castle. It was but a wood's road. At 
Oneida Castle, there was a Dutchman, who had hired an Indian 
house to accommodate travellers. We arrived there about 12 
o'clock at night and found no lodgings except the floor, all the beds 
being occupied by emigrating families. The road was very bad. 
We got our sleigh 'stuck,' which hendered us a day. We came to 
Onondaga Hollow — no settlement between Oneida Castle and 
there — arrived at Col. Danforth's, who kept a tavern. Comfort 
Tyler and Ephraim Webster, an Indian interpreter, with his squaw 
wife lived there; they were the only inhabitants. 

"We travelled thirteen miles the day we left Col. Danforth's. 
Col. Reed's family and mine, fourteen in number, camped that 
night under a hemlock tree, built a camp of hemlock boughs, had 
a warm brisk fire — made chocolate — and although my wife had 
a young child, we had a comfortable time of it. 

•'Next night we arrived at the east shore of Cayuga lake — there 
were two families there — Judge Richardson's was one — we stayed 
with him all night, and crossed the lake on the ice in the morning. 
The next night we got to the foot of Seneca lake — found there a 
man by the name of Earl; he had a log cabin, but no floor in it; 
we stayed there all night; Earl had a scow to ferry us across the 
outlet of the lake. Next morning we went home with Mrs. Reed 
and family — found Col. Reed at home, waiting for the arrival of 
his family. His house stood on the bank of the lake, in Geneva; 
the place then contained ten or twelve families. 

"From Geneva to Canandaigua there was no house; Flint creek, 
half way between those places was very high, and frozen at the 
edges; there was no bridge; had to fall trees to get my family, 
sleigh, and goods over; had to draw the horses over with ropes. 
About five miles from Canandaigua,- we stayed all night at 'Weils' 
cabin;' Wells had been there and sowed wheat, but had left; the 
weather was very cold. Next morning we arrived at Canan- 
daigua; the outlet of the lake was not bridged, and we had a hard 
time in getting over. From Canandaigua, we pursued our journey 
to Boughton Hill, where we arrived in good health, March 7, 1790. 

"Although we were somewhat prepared for living, we still had 
to bring on our suppHes — very little flour, however, as we had 
buckwheat, and wheat harvest was not far off". A small log mill 
had been set in motion for grinding corn, in the present town of 
Avon, by a Mr. Ganson. The stones were of the native rock. 



380 HISTORY OF THE 

no doubt; to this mill I carried my buckwheat, on horse-back, 
twenty miles. 

"As wheat harvest approached, some preparations for the event 
were necessary. A floor was to be laid, of split basswood or 
linden, with such joints as the axe and drawing-knife could produce, 
the surface smoothed by the axe and carpenter's adz; cradles and 
rakes to be made by very unskillful hands — nay, further, we found 
on examination, that there was chafl' growing with our wheat, and, 
as none of the thousand and one pedlars of fanning-mills happened 
along at that juncture, we were compelled to devise some plan to 
separate the two articles. 

"A large oak tree was felled, a piece split from it, dressed to the 
thickness of a half bushel rim, six or eight feet long and twelve or 
thirteen inches wide in the widest part. This forms the curve or 
back-side of the machine. The bottom or horizontal part was made 
of part of a pine sleigh-box, and two semi- circular handles com- 
pleted the article. This we presumed to denominate a Corn Fan. 
The sieve or riddle was of black ash splinters." 

The subject of the previous biographical remarks, and writer of 
the foregoing graphic sketches of a woodsman's life; together with 
his wife, the long tried partner of his sorrows and his joys, of his 
toils and their fruits, now reside in East Bloomfield, Ontario county, 
to which place they lately moved from Victor — himself 82 years 
of age, and his wife 79, having raised twelve children, and being 
now the ancestors of fifty five living descendants, are spending the 
remainder of their days in the midst of peace and competency. 

A Scotch colony in the vicinity of Caledonia Springs, were among 
the earliest adventurers west of Genesee river. Their advent was 
in 1798. They came from Broadalbin, in the Highlands of Perth- 
shire; arriving first at a settlement of their countrymen at Johns- 
town, Montgomery cotinty; they were induced by the solicitations 
of Col. Williamson to settle at Caledonia. They were Presbyte- 
rians of the "Old Kirk," poor, with little to help them make their 

Note — Few family names are more blended in the history of Western New York, 
than that of Boughtos. The four brothers that helped to commence settlement on 
Phelps and Gorham's purchase, were: — Enos, Jared, Seymour and Hezekiah. The 
last named died as earlv as 1793; he was the father of the late Col. Claudius V. Boughton, 
of Victor, and of Georg-o H. Bousfhton, Esq. of Lockport. Col. Seymour Boughton was 
killed at the battle of Black Rock, in the war of 1812. Enos Boughton, died at Lock- 
port, in 1H26. At the great celeljration, the year previous, he was introduced to Gov. 
Clinton as the man who built the first framed barn, the first stick chimney, and planted 
the first orchard west of Seneca lake. The author has been shown a letter, from Heze- 
kiah Boughton, dated in the Genesee countn,-, in the winter of 1793, to his wife in 
Stockbridije. He mentions that there had not been sleighing enough for a "single 
team to venture to Onondaga for salt;" and says he is about to start for Niagara, and 
has been '' fortunate enough to secure company through the woods." The father of the 
four brothers, came to Victor in 1790, aged 65 years, and died in '98. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 381 

way in a new country, but stout hearts, industry and frugality. 
Col. Williamson sold them their land at three dollars per acre, on a 
credit of ten years, supplied them with a year's provisions, some 
teams, cows, &c. The five of their number who came out to 
make the selection of lands, were: — John M'Vean, Hugh M'Der- 
mott, Donald MTherson, James M'Laren, and John Anderson- 

In their new location the early Scotch adventurers had been 
preceded by one who had given the place a very bad reputation. 
His name was Peterson, a Dane, had been a sea captain — and 
tradition says, a pirate. He built a house, near the spring and 
entertained travellers, cooking himself and affoi'ding very good 
fare; afterwards marrying a girl that lived with Dugan, at Dugan's 
creek. He was strongly suspected of taking advantage of his 
secluded position, for the purpose of robbery and murder; and a 
surviving witness states that Dugan, once during a quarrel with 
him charged him with a specific offence, naming the victim. 
There was much uneasiness among the new settlers in reference 
to him, and their suspicions at one time led to an arrest and com- 
mitment to the jail at Canandaigua. He was finally obliged to 
run away, and afterwards died at sea. He was the first tavern 
keeper west of the Genesee river; certainly, a very untoward 
commencement of that branch of business. 

Mrs. Chamberlin, the wife of Deacon Chamberlin, whose narra- 
tive has already been introduced, is one of the few survivors of the 
original colonists. Her first husband, was Malcolm M'Laren. 
The other survivors, are; .Tohn M'Naughton, Mrs. M'Vean, widow 
of Donald M'Vean, and Hugh M'Dermott. 

The introduction here of portions of a narrative furnished by 
John M'Kay, Esq. of Caledonia, will not only afford some glimpses 
of early settlement there, but of previous events upon the Genesee 
river. 

"I came to what is now Groveland, on the Genesee river, in 1793, 
in my 16th year. Col. Williamson had laid out a village at Wil- 
liamsburgh, (near Geneseo;) fifteen or twenty buildings were erec- 
ted there. I remained at Groveland, for several years working 
at the carpenter's trade. Among the early events that now occur 
to me, was the firing of lands by the Indians for the purpose of 
taking game. It was in 1795. The Indians to the number of at 
least five hundred assembled. At 12 o'clock in the day, they set a 
train of fire which enclosed an area of about seven miles square, of 
the oak openings between the Canascraga and Conesus lake. Pla- 



382 HISTORY OF THE 

cing themselves inside of the area as the fire advanced and lessened 
its size, the game was driven in and shot. It was a brisk time 
during the afternoon; seventeen deer, several bear, and a large 
amount of other game, was the result of the fire hunt. Shanks, a 
celebrated Indian hunter, came in contact with a bear during the 
afternoon, that he had wounded. It was fight Indian, fight bear; 
the bear getting decidedly the advantage. He sprang upon Shanks, 
tore and lacerated his flesh — actually eating off the calves of his 
legs! The Indians found Shanks almost lifeless; the bear having 
left him for dead. He was cured of his wounds by Indian reme- 
dies, and lived for many years. 

"I was at Morris' treaty; should think there were three thousand 
Indians assembled for several days. Those who were there to 
effect the treaty, bought up beef cattle and distributed the beef 
freely to the Indians. 

"I came to Caledonia in 1803; there was then but two houses at 
the Springs. I purchased two hundred acres of land, including the 
Big Spring and the mill site at Slab City, (or Mumfordville;) Capt. 
Williamson had built a small grist mill, with one run of stones, to 
accommodate the Scotch settlers, about eighteen months before I 
came. I paid for the whole property, a little over two thousand 
dollars. My customers for some time, were from most of the then 
settled portions of the Holland Purchase; they came from as far as 
Buffalo, when they could not cross the river to Canada, on account 
of the ice; in fact, at times, from all the region west of me. The 
next mills built were those of the Holland Company, at Batavia, 
and Stoddard and Piatt's, at Leroy. The first merchant at Cale- 
donia was John Cameron; he came with a few goods in 1804 or '5. 
" When I first came to the springs, trout were abundant in it; and 
it will surprise trout fishers of the present day — and would 
perhaps old Isaac Walton himself, if he were living — to learn that 
they were comparatively tame. When we wanted them, we used 
frequently to catch them with our hands, as they lay under the 
roots of the cedar trees that grew along the banks. There would 
be occasionally one weighing as high as three pounds. It is the 
habit of the speckled trout to breed in none but running water, 
consequently they would never breed in the spring, but resorted to 
its outlet. There was never any other fish in the spring; they 
have been gradually diminishing, not only in numbers, but in size.* 
"My brother Robert came here in 1808, had been a clerk for 
some of the early merchants in Geneseo. 

* This last resort, almost, of the speckled trout in all the northern portion of Western 
New York, has within a few years, been threatened with entire desertion, or extinction. 
There is now a law in operation, limited to three years duration, which makes fishing 
in the spring or its outlet, a penal offence. The trout, as if ready to co-operate in this 
attempt to protect them in this their seeming " Reservation," are now rapidly in- 
creasin^n numbers and size. It is almost a wonder that some greedy Pre-emp- 
tionists — say a shoal of horned " Bull Pouts " — are not contesting their rights. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 383 

" 1 have often heard of buying wives, but have known, I think, 
of but one actual sale, and afterwards peaceable and quiet posses- 
sion. Phelps, the early settler at Queenston, was a Ranger. In 
1794, or '5, getting tired of a bachelor's life, he went down to 
Geneva, bought the wife of one Jennings, for six hundred dollars, 
cash down, taking her directly to Queenston. I have heard that 
the transfer was a fortunate one for all concerned; she making him 
a good wife. 

" When I first came upon the Genesee river. Little Beardstown, 
now Cuylerville, contained about fifteen hundred Indians, at Big 
Tree^ (Geneseo,) there was a small Indian settlement, forty houses, 
perhaps. There was a large Indian settlement at Squawky Hill, 
and a small one at Mt. Morris. The white woman, had a number 
of families upon her reservation at Gardeau. 

''When I came west of the river, in 1803, Isaac Smith* lived 
at the Hosmer place, mid way between the river, and Caledonia; 
he had located there as early as 1801. There was a family of 
Bakers, squatters, upon the flatts. These were all except the 
Scotch, on and near the Buffalo road, between Caledonia and the 
river. The Indian settlement of Canawagus, (now the Newbold 
farm,) contained at least forty wigwams." 

The two brothers, John and Robert M'Kay, are both surviving 
residents at Caledonia. The one, still owning and carrying on the 
mills that did the grinding at one time for "all west" of their loca- 
tion, to the western extremity of the State; the other, resides 
upon his farm, a short distance from the springs. 

Jehiel Kelsey, an aged Pioneer resides in a pleasant retreat, 
surrounded by all the comforts of life, a short distance north of 
Avon Springs. He cheerfully suspended his field labor, in which 
he was industriously engaged, and gave the author a short 
account of his early advent: — 

•'I came to Avon, in 1794, purchased the farm where I now 
reside, for one dollar fifty cents per acre, about ten years after- 
wards. I had to labor several years to get the means of purchase. 
I think I brought the first salt, in any considerable quantity, to the 
Genesee Valley. I took pork to Onondaga, exchanged pounds for 



* It is worthy of note here, that Major Smith was not only a Pioneer landlord, but 
he was the father of six daughters, five of whom were Pioneer wives and mothers. 
There are few primitive log cabins in Western New York, from beneath the roof of 
which there have gone out more and better helpers, in the settlement of a new country. 
One of the daughters became the wife of Isaac Sutherland of Batavia; another, of James 
D. Faulkner of Dansvillo; two others, of Sylvester and Sidney Hosmer; and another, 
of John M'Kay, of Caledonia. The sixth, and youngest, is Mrs. Kimberly, fwmerly 
of Batavia. Major Smith died in 1814. 



384 HISTORY OF THE 

bushels; brought my salt via Oswego, and mouth of Genesee 
river; sold it here, for ten dollars fifty cents per barrel. 

'' The first grist mill built in this region, was by Capt. Ganson, 
before 1 came on. Judge Hosmer built a saw mill on the Conesus, 
as early as 1796, the first one in this region. The Wadsworths 

built one the same year, on the same stream. Starr, who 

was the father of Horatio Jones' first wife, built the first frariied 
house in the Genesee Valley. In '94, all the inhabitants on the 
river, from Williamsburgh to its mouth, were: — Judge Hosmer, 
Gad Wadsworth, Gilbert R. Berry, Wm. Markham, Ransom Smith, 
Peter ShaefFer, William Hencher, Ebenezer Merry. 

"I helped to put up the first bridge, over 'Deep Hollow' below 
Rochester. We had previously, to go up three-fourths of a mile 
to get over this gulf To raise the bridge, all able bodied men had 
to go from Avon, and some from above. In '98 or '9, Peter 
ShaefTer put up a framed barn; it took all the men in this region — 
twenty, all told. 

" When the Holland Company surveyors first came on, they 
came here to buy much of their provisions, and grain and hay for 
their pack horses. 

"Our first meetings were held in a log school house on the present 
public square, of Avon, Judge Hosmer usually reading the Episcopal 
service. Mr. Crane, an Episcopal clergyman, w^as here, as early, 
I think, as 1800, or '1. At an early period, the Rev. Mr. Mills, 
father of Gen. Mills, a Presbyterian minister, used to come down 
to Avon and hold meetings. 

"I must tell you" said the old gentleman to the author, "how 
one of our young men got his wife, in an early day. Ebenezer 
Merry, Jr. the son of an early settler I have already named, 
pushed on still farther ahead, and settled on the Reserve, in 
Ohio, at Painsville. He built him a log hut, kept bachelor's hall, 
and commenced making an opening in the woods. He came back 
here on a visit, and told me it was pretty lonesome up there, in 
the woods. I told him he must take back a wife with hin^ 
'Well' said he, disposed to make a prompt business matter of it, 
'who shall I get]' I replied, there is the daughter of Aaron 
Adams, she would make just such a wife as you want. The young 
man went to see Miss Adams, they struck up a bargain, were 
married, and in a few days, were off through the woods to the 
Reserve; the young wife on horseback, and he on foot. He was 
one of the founders of the village of Milan, became prominent, 
among the early settlers of Ohio, was a member of the State 
Legislature. He died a few years since, leaving a large circle of 
descendants. 

"It was very sickly through the whole Genesee valley in all the 
early years. If the settler escaped the bilious fever the first year, 
he vias sure to have it the next." 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 385 

Pittstown, originally, afterwards H'oneoye, now Richmond, dates 
its first settlement at the early period of 1789. The township and 
a part of Bristol were purchased of Phelps and Gorham, by a com- 
pany of individuals of Dighton Massachusetts; thence they were 
called the " Dighton Company." The land was divided among the 
proprietors by lottery; Capt. Peter Pitts drew his share, three 
thousand acres, and was so fortunate as to get the Honeoye flatts, 
embracing the site of an old Indian town that Sullivan had des- 
troyed, large patches of cultivated ground, and some apple trees. 
Gideon Pitts, the eldest son of Capt. Pitts, came out to view land* 
about the period of Phelps and Gorham's purchase of the Indians, 
saw the lands about the Honeoye lake, and informed the Dighton 
company, of their desirable character. 

"In 1789, Gideon and William Pitts went upon their father's 
land, carrying their goods in on an ox sled. Their first shelter 
was made of their sled box; afterwards they erected a cabin and 
for two years lived alone, putting in crops upon the old Indian 
grounds." 

Capt. Pitts and the remainder of the family came in 1791, living, 
for nearly four years, alone, Capt. Tafft, of Bloomfield, being 
nearest neighbor, north, the Wadsworths, nearest west, James 
Goodwin, in Bristol, nearest east, and a few settlers at the head of 
Canandaigua lake, nearest south. There came into Pittstown, in 
1794, Dr. Lemuel Chipman, Dr. Cyrus Chipman, Philip Reed, 
Roswell Turner, (himself, bringing in his family next year,) 
Edward Hazen. In '95, Jonas Belknap and Elijah Parker. In 
'96 and '7, settlers came in rapidly. 

Aaron Hunt, Col. Green, James Garlinghouse, Jacob Holden, 
Nicholas Burby, settled at Hunt's Hollow, (head of Honeoye lake,) 
in '94. Solomon Woodruff was in Livonia as early as '93; Philip 
Short, at the foot of Hemlock lake, in '95. 

Peter Allen went into Pittstown in '96; in '7, his brother, 
Nathaniel, who had worked as a journeyman blacksmith, in Canan- 
daigua, followed him, and erected the first blacksmith's shop in the 
town, getting together a few tools, and supplying himself with 
iron, by bringing it from Canandaigua, on horseback,* 

* This early blacksmith was well known upon the Niagara frontier, in the war of 

1812, as army contractor and paymaster; afterwards, as sheriff of Ontario county, and 

representative in Congress, from that district. In the latter years of his life, he was a 

contractor upon a work of the general government, upoa the Erie and Oswego ceinals, 

25 



386 HISTORY OF THE 

The brief glimpse of early settlement thus given, is from 
information derived from Peter Pitts, the only surviving son of 
Capt. Peter Pitts, aged 67. The other survivor of the family, is 
tlie Mrs. Blackman, whose name has already been introduced in 
another connection. To her the author is indebted for the follow- 
ing reminiscences: — 

"Zadoc Hunn, a Presbyterian minister, who lived at the old 
Sheldon place, near Canandaigna, held meetings at my father's 
house, as early as 1793. He first preached in Canandaigua, after- 
wards, a log meeting house was built for him, in Bristol. We used 
to have good meetings in those days; better ones than we do now. 

"My father's house was, for several years, a home for the new 
settlers, land explorers, land agents, and surveyors. When Louis 
Philippe visited Western New York, he wished to see our neighbor- 
hood. He came with his companions, to our house, bringing a 
letter of introduction, from Thomas Morris, Esq., of Canandaigua. 
He was very sociable, and much pleased with the country. He 
remained over night. There were some Indians encamped on the 
lake shore; the party went down to see them, taking my brother 
Peter, then a small lad, along with them. He could talk Indian; 
Louis Philippe was highly pleased at being enabled to communicate 
with them through the agency of so young an interpreter. The 
first few years after our family came in, there were many Indians 
passing our house daily, and hunting parties were encamped nearly 
all the time, in the neighborhood. 

"The old Indian castle that Sullivan burned down, stood about 
one hundred rods from the foot of the lake. After we came here, 
there were many remains of wigwams that Sullivan had destroyed, 
and the bones of his pack horses " 

Capt. Peter Pitts, died in 1812, aged 74 years. His descendants 
are numerous, many of them occupying the lands he left them; — 
the flats of the Honeoye — conspicuously beautiful even now, when 
surrounded with rural landscapes, that would oftener tempt the 
traveler from the great thoroughfares, could he realize what a 
panorama of lakes, broad highly cultivated fields, flocks and herds, 

and lastly, for tho construction of the canal around the falls of the Ohio, at Louisville, 
where he died in 1833 or '4. The village of Allen's Hill grew up on a part of his 
fine farm, and took its name from him. His successor, at the old homestead, is the 
Hon. Robert L. Rose, who married his daughter; the present Representative in Con- 
gress, from Ontario; the original farm in his hands, having had accessions of hundreds 
of acres, and now forming one of the finest agricultural estates in Western New York. 
The elder brother, Peter Allen, whom Mrs. Blackman also names, was in Queenston 
battle, in command of a regiment, when he was made prisoner. He will be remem- 
bered by our older class of readers, as the one who gave the name to the " Peter Allen 
Legislature," of this state. He emigrated to Terra Haute, on the Wabash, in 1816, 
where ho ended an enterprising and useful life, in 1836. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 387 

villages, more than comfortable farm houses, is spread out in the 
southern portions of Ontario and Livingston. 

Mrs. Blackman, is enjoying with her descendants, a competence 
of worldly blessings, cheerful and happy; even disposed to be 
humorous. iShe gave as a reason why she did not go to the 
"Holland Purchase," when many of her neighbors were pushing 
on there, in 1804, '5 and '6, that her husband had then "got land 
enough cleared, so they could see out by looking straight up," and 
she did not wish to make a new beginning. The old gentleman, 
who had been almost as early a pioneer as herself, was at work on 
the highway, (June, 1848.) 

BuRGOYNE Kemp, is an aged pioneer, living in Newfane, Niag- 
ara county. A small portion of a narrative he has furnished the 
author, belongs to this period: — 

" My father's family consisting then of eleven persons, came from 
New Jersey, to Niagara, C. W. in 1786, on pack horses, pursuing 
the then usual route, via Tioga Point, and the Indian trail. We 
saw no white inhabitant after leaving Tioga Point, until we arrived 
at Lewiston. At Newton, logs had been cut to build two houses. 
At Painted Post, we were passed by a young man who was deaf and 
dumb; from signs we learned that his destination was Queenston. 
He never arrived; and from the fact that an Indian was afterwards 
in possession of his clothes, there is no doubt but he was murdered; 
though it may have been by a white brigand, the Indian afterwards 
taking the clothes from the body. 

"We had a small drove of cattle and sheep; arriving at the 
Genesee river, they swam across, the family crossing in a canoe. 
We wei-e much troubled several times on our route by the Indians 
stealing our horses, when they wandered a short distance from our 
camp." 

Mr. Kemp, as will be seen farther on, became an early settler 
upon the Holland Purchase. 

Oliver Culver, Esq. of Brighton, Monroe county, still survives 
to tell the story of his early wilderness advent. His life has been 
one of more than ordinary enterprize and industry. Coming to 
Western New York, in 1796, but nineteen years old, he has been 
a hired laborer, a trapper, a navigator of the lakes, a contractor on 
one of our largest public works, a legislator, and the patroon of 
his neighborhood. An ample fortune is the reward of a long life 
of enterprize and toil. His intellect is yet vigorous, and the iron 
frame that in youth and middle age, enabled him to encounter the 



388 HISTORY OF THE 

diseases and privations of a new country, has yielded far less than 
usual to the advance of years. 

'*! came from Vermont in 179G, on foot, my companion a young 
man by the name of Samuel Spaftbrd. Reaching Farmington, 
Ontario county, 1 got a job of making sap troughs for Jonathan 
Smith. Hearing that something was going on at Irondequoit, 1 
came on to see the place. Judge Tryon, of Lebanon, Conn, had 
purchased three hundred acres of land and laid out a village. 
There was one settler upon the village plat — a mulatto by the name 
of Samuel Dunbar. Remaining at Irondequoit a few weeks, five 
batteaux came up, with surveyors and provisions, bound for the 
New Connecticut tract. Myself and companion hired out to the 
company, and embarked for the west. 

"At Erie, we found Col. Seth Reed keeping a tavern in a 
double log house. On our way up the lake, we left a settler by 
name of Gunn, at Conneaut, and his family; he was the Pioneer 
there. We landed at the mouth of the Cuyahoga, (Cleveland,) 
built a store-house and a dwelling for the surveyors, and hands. 

One of our hands, Stiles, had his wife with him, built a 

house. He was the first settler at Cleveland. During the first 
winter, Mrs. Stiles was confined; her only female attendants being 
squaws; the child was the first born on the Reserve, and had a 
present of land from the proprietors. 

"After remaining there for one season, myself and SpafTord 
went back to Vermont, returning to Irondequoit the next spring. 
Having brought traps with us, we followed for a while the business 
of trapping and hunting. Game was very plenty about the Bay. 
Wild geese, with their broods of young gosllns, were especially 
abundant. We trapped and bought furs of Indians." 

[Another surveying party for Ohio arriving, Mr. Culver and his 
companion again accompanied them. His narrative embraces 
many interesting events connected with the primitive survey and 
settlement of the Reserve, witnessed during this and a third advent 
there. In 1798 he helped cut out the road from Pennsylvania line 
across the Reserve. On his way up he was taken sick at Buffalo 
— no physician to be had — Middaugh's wife took care of him.] 

"In the year 1800 1 purchased the farm where I now reside; 
went to work upon it, going through the woods by marked trees 
to Major Orange Stone's, for my meals and lodging; cleared seven 
acres and got it into wheat. Suspecting that I had an imperfect 
title to my land, I did no more upon it until 1805, when the title 
was made perfect. During this time, I worked at the Bay for 
Tryon and Adams, who by this time had a store there and an ashery. 
In 1804, there was a grist and saw mill, built by Smith, on 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 389 

a Stream that crosses the road from Rochester to Pittsford. The 
mill stones were taken from the old Allan mill at Rochester, that 
had run down. The trade of Tryon and Adams, extended to 
Pittsford, Penfield, Mendon; divided the trade with Canandaigua, 
of the whole region. The ashery was of great use to the new 
settlers; enabling them to sell their ashes for a shilling a bushel 
when they stood in need of the proceeds. I remember that in 
1803, Tryon and Adams shipped one hundred and three barrels of 
pearl ashes to Montreal. In 1804, when I left the Bay, four or 
five families had come in. The father of Oliver Grace, Esq., of 
Lewiston, was a general agent, or clerk, for Tryon and Adams; 
was well educated, social and pleasant; an agreeable accession to 
our back woods' settlement.* 

"In the early years, the whole region about the Bay, was a 
favorite hunting ground; deer and bear were very plenty. There 
were a few beaver in this region when I first came in. I trapped 
a couple of young ones at Braddock's Bay, in 1797; found one of 
their houses, or lodges. It was built in a conical form, of brush 
and rushes, plastered with clay. Their bed was elevated above 
the water, and dry. The sticks they had carried into their lodge 
for their winter's food, were piled up outside with the bark all 
gnawed off. I have seen the stumps of trees they had gnawed off 
one foot in diameter. They select their sites for dams with all the 
nice judgment that man would use in locating mill dams. The 
beaver dams were numerous in all the lake Ontario region. 

"I married and settled upon my farm in 1805. In that year and 
the following, myself and four neighbors: — George Daly, Orange 
Stone, Samuel Spafford, and Miles Northup, with the help of fifty 
dollars appropriated by the then town of Northfield, cut out the 
road two rods wide, for the distance of four miles from the river, 
east. I am the only person now Uving in the town of Brighton, 
who was here, an adult, in 1796." 

The author is indebted to Mr. J. B. Taylor, of West Webster, 

* The author has one of the old account books of this primitive mercantile estab- • 
lishment. Each page is dated " Gerundegut Lauding." Some names as they occur 
through its pages, will remind the reader of early times: — Seymour Boughton, Miles 
Bristol, Jonathan Brown, Capt. Abraham Burchard, William Bacon, James Brooks, 
James Cronk, John Dailey, Levi Van Fossen, Wm. and Daniel Gould, Nathaniel 
Rowley, Paul Roberts, John Stoughton, Noah Smith, Asa Taft, Nathan Tolls, Gideon 
Thayer, Stephen Tinker, Matthew Warner, Ashael Warner, Aaron Watkins, Ezra 
Norton, Zebulon Norton, James Annibal, Amherst Humphrey, Samuel Stephens, 
Samuel Miles, James Maxwell, John Porter, Eljah Morgan, Samuel Bullin, Samuel 
Carr, Martin Lewis, Asa Porter, Solomon Hovey, Abner Sheldon, Wm. Keyes, 
Solomon Sylvester, Wm. Tanner, James Henry, Richard Smith, Reuben Thayer, 
Benjamin Barton, Paul Davison Elisha Brockway, Aaron Watkins, Noah Smith, 
Jasper Sears, Wait Lewis, Joel Brace, John Daily, Wheelock Wood, Thaddeus Keyes, 
Smith Wilcox, Levi Boughton, Abel Baker, Joel" Henderson, Abel Rowe, John Chap- 
man, Stephen Hopkins, Oliver Tracy, Augustus Porter, Peter B. Porter, Oliver Culver, 
James Walsworth, Glover Perrin, Samuel Stone, Oliver Grace, Oliver Phelps, John 
Ray, John F. Taylor, Thomas King, Wm. Hencher. 



390 HISTORY OF THE 

Monroe county, for the information contained in the followmg 
extracts of a letter: — 

"My mother, now quite advanced in years, resides with her 
sister, Mrs. M'Laren, near Benedict's Corners, on Ridge Road, 
east of Rochester. I gather from her the statement, that she came 
with my father, to Braddock's Bay, in 1797. There had been 
hving there, then, for three or four years, three brothers: — Bezeal, 
Stephen, and John Atchison. The names of the others there, 

were: — John Madden, Goodhue, Labon, 

Bennet. Wm. Hencher Uved at the mouth of Genesee river; a 
rather singular sort of personage; a second Daniel Boone. Some 
emigrants settled four or five miles from him, at which he became 
very indignant; said he did not wish to have neighbors so near 
him."* 

The following is a copy of the first tax roll ever made out for 
the region west of the Genesee river; it being then all embraced 
in one town — Northampton. It is entire, with the exception of 
fifteen or sixteen names, torn from the first page of the roll. It 
was furnished to the editor of the Rochester Democrat, by Donald 
M'Kenzie, Esq., of Caledonia. It is dated October 6th, 1800; and 
signed by Augustus Porter and Amos Hall, as commissioners of 
taxes for Ontario county. The assessors for the town of North- 
ampton, were: — Cyrus Douglas, Michael Beach, Eli Griffith, and 
Philip Beach; Peter Shaefler, (still living,) was the collector. 
There were not then, as it appears, over twelve taxable inhabitants 
upon the Purchase; in Buffalo, only Johnston, Middaugh and Lane. 





Value real and 


Ain't 




Value 


real and 


Ani't 




pers'l estate. 


of Tax. 




pers 


1 estate. 


of Tax. 


Curtis, William 


$30 


f 06 


Conatt, Samuel 




38 


06 


Carter, William 


94 


18 


Chamberlin, Joshua 




60 


12 


Chamberliu, Hinds 


284 


40 


Cary, Joseph 




948 


1 61 


Curtis, Augustus 


500 


61 


Coots, Timothj- 




396 


54 


Curtis, Jonathan 


387 


54 


Dug^an, Christopher 




1306 


1 63 


Campbell, Peter 


52 


09 


Douglas, Cyrus 




78 


14 


Chapin, Henry 


3000 


6 50 


Davis, Daniel 




572 


72 


Chapman, Asa 


112 


23 


Davis, Garret 




350 


45 


Cumins, Joseph 


20 


04 


Davis, Bela 




105 


22 



* This first settler at the mouth of Genesee river — and firet, in fact, in all that region 
— has been several times alluded to, by others. He had held a commission under 
Shay, in the Massachusetts rebellion. When the force was disbanded, he had taken so 
conspicuous a part in the rebellion, that he feared to remain, and came first to Chemung-, 
where he remained two or three years. The following extract of a letter, dated in 1791, 
from one of his daughters, who was with him, to another, in Massachusetts, would 
show that he came to Western New York, about that period: — "We are waiting at 
Chemung, to get rid of the fever and ague; as soon as we do, we are going to the 
Genesee country. Father has been out there and returned." Mr. Hencher died in 
1821, leaving a large number of descendants. Mrs. Donald M'Kenzie, of Caledonia, 
is one of Iiis daughters. Mrs. Richardson, of Cambria, Niagara county, widow of 
Jonathan Richardson, is a sister of the early pioneer. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE 



391 



Value real aiic 


Am't 


Value real and Am't 


pers'l estate. 


of Tax. 




pers'l estate. 


Of Tax. 


Davis, Samuel 


312 


37 


Rhau, Alexander 


85 


12 


Ellicott, Benjamin 


600 


71 


Stimson, Leonard 


52 


11 


Fish, Josiah 


1516 


1 86 


Stimson & Jones 


200 


29 


Farewell, Elisha 


288 


37 


Stoughton, Amaziah 
Sheffer, Peter 


164 


21 


Fuller, David 


80 


12 


4260 


5 36 


Forsyth, John 


330 


43 


Scott, Isaac 


1108 


1 45 


Granger, Eli 


100 


14 


Shelly, Phiros . 


150 


18 


Goodhue, George 


176 


20 


Scott, Salmon 


796 


95 


Ganson, John, Jr. 


1640 


2 10 


Scoonover, Jacob 


731 


1 00 


' Ganson, James 


12 


02 


Thompson Abriandner 


30 


07 


Griffith, Eli 


658 


98 


Utley, Asa 


901 


1 17 


Hencher, Wm. 


1036 


1 64 


Olrastead, Jeremiah 


120 


29 


Hicks, Samuel 


44 


09 


Wilber, Charles 


60 


31 


1 Heth, Reuben 


40 


09 


Walther, Frederick 


488 


68 


Hunt, Elijah 


68 


14 


Wemple, Henry 


27 


17 


Harris, Alpheus 


72 


15 




42 


10 


Hall, Friend 


200 


30 


King, Thomas 


30 


07 


Hunt, Joseph 


64 


13 


King, Simeon 


40 


10 


Hopkins, Timothy 


42 


09 


Hender, Stephen 


12 


02 


Hayne, John 


50 


11 


Ransom, Asa 


410 


61 


Hawley, Chapman 


112 


18 


Erwin,John 


428 


96 


Hall, Gilbert 


370 


52 


Woolman, John 


162 


36 


Hoit, Stephen 


153 


34 


Philips, William 


30 


07 


Jones, H. John 


140 


23 


Carver, John 


316 


40 


Jones, Elizabeth 


153 


24 


Eli, Justin 


dOOO 


9 91 


1 Johnson, Moses 


800 


1 07 


Barnard, Ebenezer ? 
Perkins, Enoch ^ 


1950 


3 87 


Johnson, Wm. 


2034 


3 50 


Kith. M. Michael 


42 


09 


Phelps, Oliver 


4437 


8 80 


Kimball, John 


700 


1 03 


Hartford, Charles 


2333 


4 62 


Kent, tllijah 


96 


14 


King, Gideon, heirs 


4500 


5 36 


Lane, Ezekiel 


114 


24 


Granger, Zadoc 


4500 


8 92 


Laybourn, Christopher 


470 


62 


Hinkley, Samuel ) 






Lyon, John 


40 


08 


Stone, John > 


5000 


9 91 


Leonard, Jonathan 


40 


06 


Graves, Silas ) 






Lewis, Seth 


60 


14 


Wadsworth, James 


34,500 


68 38 


Mills, Wm. 


714 


94 


Williamson, C. &. others 34,500 


68 28 


Mills, Lewis 


72 


16 


Gilbert, Warren 


2,190 


2 60 


Mills, Alexander 


80 


19 


Colt, Judah 


1,320 


2 61 


Mills, Samuel 


950 


30 


Morris, Thomas 


4,200 


8 32 


Morton, Simeon 


50 


11 


Hall, Amos 


700 


1 38 


Mading, Timothy 


128 


16 


Holland Company 


3,300,000 


5231 62 


McCioning, John 


40 


09 


Williamson, Charles 


155,150 


307 41 


McCloning, John, Jr. 


12 


02 


Williamson & Phelps 


100,000 


219 14 


Middaugh, Martin 


45 


09 


Craigie, Andrew 


50,000 


73 96 


Mayle, Lewis 


30 


09 


Ogden, Samuel 


50,000 


109 57 




84 


19 


Cottinger, Garrit 


50,000 


109 57 


Mulkins, Henry 


54 


11 


Church, Phillip 


100,000 


219 14 


Nettleton, Philemon 


592 


80 


Unknown 


27,210 


59 41 


Morgan, Joseph 
M'Naughton, John 


870 


1 11 


Leroy & Bayard 


82,000 


179 68 


48 


11 


Leroy & Bayard 


40,000 


87 66 


McPherson, Dan 


100 


22 


Phelps & Jones 






Patterson, Lawrence 
Pebody, Stephen 


500 

86 


90 

18 


Supposed to be owned 
by Thomas Morris 


40,960 


89 36 


Palmer, John 
Pangman, William 


482 
300 


72 
66 


Joseph Fitts Simmons ', 
Joseph Higby ' 


600,000 


1314 84 


Quivey, Norton 
Redford, John 


70 
130 


15 
19 








Total $^ 


1,785,368 8,387 11 


Note — The names were, many 

sinnh nnrrnfiinna ao flio onflinv It: i 


» 

of them. 


wrong, in the transcript 


copied from 

nihar ronnrt 


. After 



are yet, it is presumed, some errors. 



392 HISTORY OF THE 



BENJAMIN BARTON. 



He was a native of Sussex county, New Jersey; born in 1771. 
Wlien but seventeen years of age — in the year 1787 — he accom- 
panied his father to assist in driving a drove of cattle and sheep 
purchased for the use of the British Connmissariat at Niagara. 
The route was the one that has already been described; the Indian 
trail, that was then the only route to Fort Niagara and Canada. 
On reaching the Genesee river, the party rested for a few days to 
allow the cattle and sheep to recruit, and while there, erected a 
small log cabin, for their own convenience, and the convenience of 
other drovers; which is supposed to be the first tenement erected 
by white men, between Whitestown on the Mohawk and the wes- 
tern frontiers of the state. 

Major Barton came to Geneva in 1788; and in the year 1790, 
purchased from Poudery, a Frenchman, who had married a squaw, 
(and to whom the Indians had given the land,) a valuable farm on 
the Cashong creek, seven miles from Geneva. 

This farm was formerly the site of an Indian town which had 
been destroyed by the army of Gen. SulHvan in 1779. More than 
one hundred acres of it had been improved from time immemorial; 
so long, that the stumps had rotted away, and there were a great 
many old apple trees growing upon it, many of which were more 
than a foot and a half in diameter. These were the only things on 
it that escaped the destruction inflicted upon all Indian towns he 
reached, by Gen. Sullivan. In payment for this farm, he gave all 
the money and property he had, even to parting with a portion of 
his raiment. He had great difficulty in getting the purchase ratified 
by the State, but succeeded finally, through the great kindness and 
assistance rendered to him by Gov. George Clinton. 

In 1792, Major Barton, was married at Canandaigua to the kind 
and affectionate companion who yet survives him, and with whom 
he hved nearly half a century. After his marriage he settled in 
Geneva, where his first child, a daughter, was born; and in 1794 
removed on to his farm, where he continued to reside until the 
spring of 1807, when he removed to Lewiston in Niagara county. 
He was employed a long time by the Surveyor General in survey- 
ing the State military tract lying east of Ontario, to, and including 
Onondaga county; as well as rendering much service in that way 
in Ontario county. 




or wM [NOiCOTT a- CO n 



^^J, 




C 6 CRIMEN 



[illi^cil^SiEElf IBliIE^(0)lJo 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 393 

Between 1801 and 1805, he was three or four years the Sheriff of 
Ontario county, which then embraced all the territory of New York 
(except the county of Steuben,) west of Seneca lake, and from the 
Pennsylvania line to lake Ontario, which has since been subdivided 
into thirteen counties. 

During the time he held the office, he had to serve a criminal 
process upon an Indian residing on the Buffiilo reservation for the 
crime of murder, he having killed a man in a drunken brawl at a 
little log tavern, near where the Mansion House in this city now 
stands. At that period of time the Indians were much the stronger 
party in the country, and a process like this could not be executed 
without their consent. The chiefs objected to the arrest being 
made; said they regretted the circumstance, but they understood 
the white people in a case of murder, in trying and punishing a man 
who committed it, they made no difference whether he was drunk 
or sober at the time, that they did, their young warrior was drunk 
when he committed the act, and they would punish him; at all 
events they would not consent that he should be taken and tied on 
a horse like a thief, and carried through the country to the jail at 
Canandaigua. Major B. represented to them, that as the offence 
was a crime against our laws and within the jurisdiction of the 
state, the arrest must be made, even if it took a large force to do it, 
and they had better consent, but they positively forbid his making 
it. It was then mutually agreed between him and the chiefs, that 
they should go to Fort Niagara, then commanded by Major Moses 
Porter, and consult with him what was best to be done. Even 
here a positive refusal was adhered to, not to permit the arrest to 
be made. They were willing to pledge their words as chiefs, that 
the man should be in Canandaigua when the court met, and that 
the Sheriff might go home. This agreement was faithfully per- 
formed. The Indian had his trial, was convicted and sentenced to 
be hung, but subsequently pardoned by Gov. George Clinton and 
banished the state. He went by the English name of Stiff-arm 
George, and is yet, or was a few years ago, residing in the state of 
Pennsylvania. 

Previous to the surrender of Fort Niagara, in 1796, under Jay's 
treaty, and while held by the British Government, no white man 
could travel on the frontier, without being liable to be arrested by 
the Indians and taken to the fort under suspicion of being a 
deserter, unless he could exhibit to the Indians a pass, from the 



394 HISTORY OF THE 

commander of the fort; which pass, as the Indians could not read, 
was a card or thick piece of paper having on it a large wax seal, 
bearing a particular impression. Major B. has been once or twice 
thus arrested, and at other times had to dodge and run away from 
drunken and troublesome Indians. 

During his early rambles on this frontier, he foresaw the brilliant 
prospects and immense trade which would in time flow through 
these great inland seas. As soon as the Mile Strip on the Niagara 
river was surveyed into farm and village lots, by the State who 
was the owner, he attended the sale at the Surveyor General's 
office in Albany, in 1805. Here he met with Judge and General 
Porter on the same business. They formed a connection of friend- 
ship and business, which continued unbroken to the day of his death. 
They purchased several farm lots, including the property around 
the Falls, and bid off, at public auction, the landing places at Lewis- 
ton and Schlosser, for which they received a lease for twelve or 
thirteen years. In 1806, under the firm of Porter, Barton & Co., 
they commenced the carrying trade around the Niagara Falls, on 
the American side; they were connected with Matthew M'Nair of 
Oswego, and Jonathan Walton & Co. of Schenectady; and this 
was the first regular and connected hue of forwarders that ever 
did business from tide-water to lake Erie on the American side of 
the Niagara river. 

After Major Barton removed to Lewiston, in 1807, then in the 
county of Genesee, he was for one or two years the Sheriff; after 
which he never asked for nor held any civil office, except such as 
supervisor or other town office, which are rather burthensome than 
otherwise, but he always held that it was every one's duty to bear 
his share of such tasks. He was an American in heart and prin- 
ciple, and loved his country and her republican institutions before 
all others. He was a strong advocate for the war of 1812, and 
during the early part of it, gave his whole efforts and influence to 
its support. In 1813 when the Niagara frontier was invaded and 
laid waste with fire and sword by the enemy, Major Barton was a 
large sufferer; his houses, stores, mills, and other property being 
burned up or otherwise destroyed; for all of which he received but 
a partial remuneration from the Government. This severe pecu- 
niary loss, flowing from the progress of the war which he had aided 
in bringing about, and to which he had given his untiring zeal in 
supporting, did not in the least change his views or feelings in what 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 395 

he considered a just and proper act of the Government; but on the 
contrary called him more fully into action. 

In the spring of 1814, when his friend and partner, General 
Porter, raised his Brigade of Volunteers, which during the cam- 
paign so much distinguished themselves. Major B. joined them as 
special quarter master for the corps, under a commission from Gov. 
Tompkins. In this department, his services were soon found so 
useful, that in July, while the American army lay on Queenstown 
Heights, he received from the President, a commission as Deputy 
Quarter Master General in the regular army, in which he continued 
to the close of the war. 

After the restoration of peace, Major B. returned with his 
family (who left at the commencement of the war,) to Lewiston, 
his favorite place, and commenced rebuilding and repairing the 
injury his property had received during the war. For the last 
fifteen or twenty years of his life, he gave up all cares of business, 
except agriculture, to which he was much attached. He originally 
had a most uncommonly robust constitution; but from early expo- 
sure in surveying the country, by exposure in winter and summer 
to rains and snows, and hard fare in living, he became, as age 
creeped on, subject to rheumatism and other chronic complaints, 
which entirely broke him up; and, for the last five years, he 
enjoyed'but Kttle good health. 

During a long life. Major Barton has been eminently a useful 
man. Thrown, in his minority, upon the world, to work his own 
way, without a shilUng to aid him, but possessing talents, industry, 
perseverance and economy, he overcame all obstacles, and rose to 
the enjoyment of wealth and honors. He was naturally modest 
and unobtrusive; decisive and firm in purpose; honest and upright 
in all his dealings; never oppressive to those indebted to him, but 
rather extending to them additional assistance; generous and obli- 
ging in his disposition, and always ready to bear his portion in any 
public improvement; without any desire for, or attempt at show or 
ostentation, for which he had a perfect contempt; but treating with 
great respect and civility, worth and merit, whether covered with 
the humble garb of poverty or more rich attire; a kind husband, 
an affectionate father, a good neighbor, and an unflinching friend. 

He died at Lewiston, in 1842, aged 72 years. 

Note. — The portrait accompanying the biography, is from a painting made when the 
subject of it was but a little over fifty years of age; there being no later one. With 



396 HISTORY OF THE 



CHAPTER III. 



iMORRIs' PURCHASE GENERAL DISPOSITION OF "MORRIs' RESERVE." 



Messrs. Phelps and Gorham, who had paid about one third of 
the purchase money of the whole tract purchased of Massachu- 
setts, in consequence of the rise of the value -of "Massachusetts 
consolidated stock," (in which the payments for the land were to 
be received) from twenty per cent, to par, were unable further to 
comply with their engagements and consummate the conditions of 
the sale on their part, and Massachusetts commenced suits on their 
bonds. After a long negotiation between the parties in which 
many propositions were made, accepted and abrogated by mutual 
consent, the whole transaction relative to the purchase of those 
lands was settled and finally closed on the tenth day of March, 
1791, by Messrs. Phelps and Gorham relinquishing to Massachu- 
setts that portion of the land, and Massachusetts relinquishing to 
the said Phelps and Gorham, their bonds for the payment of the 
purchase money therefor. 

On the 12th day of March, 1791, the state of Massachusetts 
agreed to sell to Samuel Ogden, who was acting for and in behalf 
of Robert Morris, all the lauds ceded to the said state, by the state 
of New York, except that part thereof which had been conveyed 
by Massachusetts to Phelps and Gorham. See Sec. Office, Mas- 
sachusetts Exemp. Records, fol. 1. 

In conformity with this agreement the state of Massachusetts 
conveyed to Robert Morris, on the 11th day of May, 1791, the 
whole of said land in five diflferent deeds — the first including all 

those who have only known him in later years, broken in health, as has been observed, 
it will not be recognized as a faithful likeness; while those who knew him when he had 
but just passed the prime of life, consider it generally, correct. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 397 

the land on said tract lying east of a meridian line beginning at a 
point in the north line of Pennsylvania, twelve miles M^est of the 
southw^est corner of Phelps and Gorham's tract, and running due 
north to lake Ontario, supposed to contain about five hundred 
thousand acres. See Sec. Office, Jllbany, Book of Deeds, 23, fol 
231. The second deed included all the land between the last 
described tract and a meridian line beginning at a point in the 
north line of Pennsylvania, sixteen miles west of the southwest 
corner of the last described tract, thence running due north to lake 
Ontario. See Sec. Office, Albany, Lib. 23, fol. 234. The third deed 
included all the land lying between the last mentioned tract, and a 
meridian line, beginning at a point in the north line of Pennsyl- 
vania, sixteen miles west of the southwest corner of the last 
described tract, and thence running due north to the shore of lake 
Ontario. See Sec. Office, Jllbany, Lib. 23, fol. 235. The fourth 
deed contained all land lying beetween the last mentioned tract, 
and a meridian line, beginning at a point in the north line of Penn- 
sylvania, sixteen miles west of the southwest corner of the last 
described tract, and thence running due north to the shore of lake 
Ontario. See Sec. Office, Albany, Lib. 23, fol. 232. The fifth and 
last deed included all the land owned by the state of Massachusetts 
in this state, lying west of the last described tract. See Sec. Office, 
Albany, Lib. 23, fol, 237. The four last mentioned tracts included 
about three million, three hundred thousand acres. 

One undivided sixtieth part of the whole of the land included in 
these five deeds, had been reserved by Massachusetts, in their 
original agreement with Samuel Ogden, Morris' agent, to meet the 
demands of John Butler, who had contracted with Phelps and 
Gorham for the purchase of the same, prior to the surrender of 
their claim to Massachusetts. Butler, however, subsequent to the 
surrender, and before the execution of the conveyances above 
recited, assigned his right to said sixtieth part to Robert Morris, 
which enabled him to acquire a title to the whole at the same time. 

The tract of land described in and conveyed by the first men- 
tioned deed, took the name of Morris' Reserve, from the fact that 
he retained that tract in the sale which he afterwards made to the 
Holland Company. Mr. Morris sold out in parcels from forty, to 
one hundred and fifty thousand acres each, to wit: he sold to 
Leroy, Bayard and M'Evers the triangular tract, bounded south- 



HISTORY OF THE 

easterly by the Phelps and Gorham purchase west of Genesee 
river, west by a line beginning at the southwest corner of said 
Phelps and Gorham's tract, and running due north to lake Ontario 
and north by said lake Ontario, containing about eighty seven 
thousand acres. The next sale which Mr. Morris made (which 
was before he sold the land described in the other deeds to the 
Holland Company,) was one hundred thousand acres to Watson 
Cragie and Grcenleaf, bounded east by said triangular tract, north 
by lake Ontario, west by a line running parallel with the west line 
of the triangle and six miles distant therefrom, and south by an east 
and west line so far south of lake Ontario as that the tract shall 
contain one hundred thousand acres. This sale was made under 
the fullest confidence (on what authority it is not known) that the 
full width of the tract fell on the land described in the first men- 
tioned deed, executed to Mr. Morris by Massachusetts, which 
appears to have been an erroneous assumption. 

This tract after several transfers, was conveyed in 1801, to the 
State of Connecticut (being purchased with a portion of their 
school fund) and Sir William Pultney, one undivided half each, 
which was divided between them in 1811, portions of the share of 
each being interspersed through the whole tract. The lands falling 
to the one share being called Connecticut lands and to the other 
Pultney estate lands, although the whole tract is usually designated 
the Connecticut Tract. 

Mr. Morris then sold fifty thousand acres, south of and adjoining 
the Connecticut Tract to Andrew Cragie. This sale, however, 
was made after Mr. Morris had sold the land included in the other 
four deeds from Massachusetts, to the Holland Company, or to 
persons in trust for them. This tract was bounded east, partly by 
the Triangular Tract, and partly by a line run due south from the 
southern angle thereof, in the whole one hundred four chains and 
sixty seven links; north by the Connecticut tract six miles; west 
by a line parallel to, and six miles west from the east boundary of 
the tract, one hundred four chains and sixty-seven links, and south 
by an east and west line, parallel to the north bounds of the tract, 
one hundred four chains and sixty-seven links south therefrom: 
this is generally called the Cragie Tract. Mr. Morris sold to 
Samuel Ogden fifty thousand acres described as lying south of, and 
adjoining the Cragie Tract, and of the same length and breadth: 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 399 

this is called tiie Ogden Tract. He likewise sold one other tract 
containing fifty thousand acres to Gerrit Cotringer, lying south of, 
and adjoining the Ogden Tract, of the same length and breadth. 

Mr. Morris sold forty thousand acres to Wilhem and Jan Willink, 
bounded east by the Genesee river, north by Phelps and Gorham's 
Purchase west of Genesee river, twelve miles; west by a line 
running due south from the southwest corner of said Phelps and 
Gorham's Purchase, and south by a line parallel with the north 
bounds of the tract and so far south as to include forty thousand 
acres: this is called " The Forty Thousand Acre Tract." Of this 
tract Mr. Morris sold to John B. Church, one hundred thousand 
acres, being six miles wide, lying east of, and adjoining the lands 
sold by him to the Holland Company and extending nearly from 
the Pennsylvania line to the Cotringer Tract. One undivided half 
of this tract fell into the hands of the creditors of J. B. Church 
and the other half became the property of his son Judge Philip 
Church, which parts have since been separated. 

The tract six miles wide, east of the Cotringer tract and 
Church's tract, containing one hundred and fifty thousand acres, 
was sold by Mr. Morris to Samuel Sterrett, and the lands between 
the Sterrett tract and the forty thousand acre tract, except the 
Mount Morris tract, part of Gardeau Reservation, &c. is generally 
known as Morris' honorary creditor's tract. It will be understood 
that the foregoing mentioned sales as well as that to the Holland 
Company or their trustees, was made before the Indian title to the 
lands was extinguished, with an agreement on his part, to effect 
that object. In regard to the settlement of these several tracts, 
the Connecticut Tract could not be offered for sale until after its 
division between Connecticut and the Pultney Estate, in 1811. 
The owners of the Cragie Tract, Ogden Tract, Cotringer Tract 
and Sterrett Tract, neglected to put their lands in market, until 
great progress had been made in settling the adjacent lands west 
on the Holland Purchase. There were some early settlers on the 
Triangular Tract, Forty thousand acre Tract, and Church's Tract, 
but these settlements progressed slowly at first, especially on 
Church's Tract, the only one of these which joined the Holland 
Purchase. We know of no reason for the tardy progress of the 
settlement on Mr. Church's Tract, as the proprietor located 
himself on the premises in 1804, and expended large sums of 
money to give it its primary impetus, unless it was that Mr. 



400 HISTORY OF THE 

Church, who was educated in Europe and had associated with its 
aristocracy, was better quaUfied to support the high character of 
his hospitable mansion, overflowing with the substantial, and well 
stored with all the delicacies and luxuries produced in or imported 
to this region; than to mete out the hills and dales of the earth by 
the acre, to the huge-framed axe-man, and long-limbed Bill Purdys 
of the exploring pioneers. Judge Church resides two and a half 
miles southwest of the village of Angelica, the county town of 
Alleghany county, at his beautiful country seat, Belvidere, on the 
banks of the Genesee river. 



PART FIFTH. 



CHAPTER I 



HISTORICAL DEDUCTION OF HOLLAND COMPANY TITLE SURVEYS. 



The last four tracts described in the conveyances of the land 
purchased of Massachusetts by Robert Morris, were conveyed 
by him by four separate deeds, as follows: 1st, deed from Robert 
Morris and wife, to Herman Le Roy and John Linklaen, for one 
and a half million acres, dated December 24th, 1792. 2d, deed 
from Robert Morris and wife, to Herman Le Roy, John Linklaen 
and Gerrit Boon for one million acres, dated February, 27th 1793. 
3rd, deed from Robert Morris and wife to Herman Le Roy, John 
Linklaen and Gerrit Boon, for eight hundred thousand acres, dated 
July 20th, 1793. Deed from Robert Morris and wife, to Herman 
Le Roy, William Bayard and Matthew Clarkson, for three hundred 
thousand acres, dated July 20th, 1793. 

These tracts were purchased with the funds of certain gentle- 
men in Holland, and held in trust by the several grantees for their 
benefit, as they, being aliens, could not purchase and hold real 
estate, in their own names, according to the then existing laws of 
the State. After several changes in the trustees, and transfers of 
portions of the land, sanctioned by the Legislature, the whole tract 
was conveyed by the trustees by three sepai'ate deeds, to the 
Holland Company, or rather, to the individuals, in their own 
names, composing three separate branches of that Company.* 

Although these deeds of conveyance were given to three 
distinct companies of proprietors, their interests were so closely 
blended, several of the same persons, having large interests in 
each of the three different estates; they appointed one general 
agent for the whole, who managed the concerns of the tract 
generally, as though it all belonged to the same proprietors, making 

* For a deduction of the title of the Holland Land Company, including a synopeifl 
otf those three deeds, see Appendix. 

26 



402 HISTORY OF THE 

no distinction which operated in the least on the settlers and 
purchasers, but simply keeping the accounts of each separate, 
when practicable, and apportioning, pro rata, all expenses when 
blended in the same transaction for the benefit of the whole. 
The general agent likewise appointed the same local or resident 
agent for the three companies owning this tract in Western JXew 
York.* The only difference between its consisting of one or more 
tracts discernablc by the purchaser of lands, was, that in executing 
contracts or conveyances, the agents used the names of the 
respective proprietors of each tract. Under this state of things, 
we shall denominate the whole of the proprietors holding under 
these three deeds, " The Holland Company," and the lands con- 
veyed by those deeds, the " Holland Purchase." 

It is a curious fact, that when the Dutch proprietors were parcel- 
ling out the tract among the three dit^ercnt branches of the com- 
pany, it was mutually agreed among the whole, that Messrs. 
Wilhem Willink, Jan Willink, Wilhcm Willink the younger, and Jan 
Willink the younger, should have three hundred thousand acres, 
located in such part of the whole tract as they should select. In 
making their selection, they located their three hundred thousand 
acres, in nearly a square form, in the southeast corner of the tract, 
for the reason that it was nearest Philadelphia, the residence of 
their agent general. This selection contained the territory now 
composing the towns of Bolivar, Wirt, Friendship, the east part of 
Belfast, Genesee, Clarksville and Cuba, in Allegany county, Port- 
ville, and the east parts of Hinsdale and Rice in Cattaragus 
county. This location will give the reader who is acquainted with 
the localities of the country, some idea of the knowledge, or rather 
want of knowledge, of the Dutch proprietors, of the situation and 
relative advantages of the diffei'ent portions of their vast domains. 

This sale by Robert Morris to the Holland Company was made 
before the Indian title to the land was extinguished, accompanied 
by an agreement on his part to extinguish that title, with the assist- 
ance of the Company, as soon as practicable; therefore at a council 
of the Seneca Indians, held at Geneseo, on Genesee river, in the 
month of September, 1797, at which Jeremiah Wadsworth attended 
as Commissioner for the United States, and William Shepherd as 

* The same proprietors or a portion of them, owned tracts of land in the middle 
section of this state and in Pennsylvania which was under the supervision and control 
of other local or resident agents. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 403 

agent for Massachusetts, Robert Morris in fulfilment of his several 
contracts with the Holland Company, and the other persons to 
whom he had sold land on this tract, acting by his agents, Thomas 
Morris and Charles Williamson, extinguished the Indian title to all 
the land, the pre-emption right of which he had purchased of Mas- 
sachusetts, except the following Indian Reservations, to wit: The 
Cannawagus reservation, containing two square miles, lying on the 
west bank of Genesee river, west of Avon. Little Beard's and 
Bigtree reservations, containing together four square miles, lying on 
the west bank of Genesee river opposite Geneseo. Squakie Hill 
reservation, containing two square miles, lying on the north bank of 
Genesee river, north of Mount Morris. Gardeau reservation, con- 
taining about twenty-eight square miles, lying on both sides of 
Genesee river, two or three miles south of Mount Morris. The 
Canadea reservation, containing sixteen square miles, lying each 
side of, and extending eight miles along the Genesee river, in the 
county of Allegany. The Oil Spring reservation, containing one 
square mile, lying on the line between Allegany and Cattaragus 
counties. The Allegany reservation, containing forty-two square 
miles, lying on each side of the Allegany river, and extending from 
the Pennsylvania line northeastwardly about twenty-five miles. 
The Cattaragus reservation, containing forty -two square miles, 
lying each side and near the mouth of Cattaragus creek, on lake 
Erie. The Buffalo reservation, containing one hundred and thirty 
square miles, lying on both sides of the Buffalo creek, and extend- 
ing east from lake Erie about seven miles wide. The Tonawanda 
reservation, containing seventy square miles, lying on both sides of 
the Tonawanda creek, beginning about twenty-five miles from its 
mouth, and extending eastwardly about seven miles wide; and the 
Tuscarora reservation, containing one square mile, lying about 
three miles east of Lewiston, on the Mountain Ridge. 

Thcophilus Cazenove, the agent general of the Holland Company, 
resident at Philadelphia, in July, 1797, had engaged Mr. Joseph 
Ellicott, as principal surveyor of the company's lands in Western 
New York, whenever their title should be perfected and possession 
obtained, and likewise, to attend the before-mentioned council and 
assist Messrs. W. Bayard and J. Linklaen, who were to attend and 
act as agents for the company, {sub rosa,) for the purpose of pro- 
moting the interests of their principals in any treaty which might be 
made with the Indians. Mr. Ellicott attended the council accord- 



404 HISTORY OF THE 

ingly, and rendered valuable services to the purchasers. This 
period w^as the commencement of upwards of twenty years' regular 
active service rendered by Mr, Ellicott to the Holland Land 
Company, in conducting their affairs and executing laborious enter- 
prises for their benefit. 

As soon as the favorable result of the proceedings of this council 
was known, Mr. Ellicott proceeded immediately to prepare for the 
traverse and survey of the north and northwest bounds of the 
tract. As soon as the necessary preparatory steps could be taken. 
Mr. Ellicott, as surveyor for the Holland Company, and Augustus 
Porter, in the same capacity, for Robert Morris, for the purpose 
of estimating the quantity of land in the tract, started a survey at 
the northeast corner of Phelps and Gorham's tract, west of Gen- 
esee river, and traversed the south shore of lake Ontario to the 
mouth of Niagara river; thence up the eastern shore of the 
Niagara river to lake Erie, thence along the southeast shore of 
lake Erie to the west bounds of the state of New York, being a 
meridian line running due south from the west end of lake Ontario, 
which had been previously established by Andrew Ellicott, Sur- 
veyor General of the United States, assisted by said Joseph Ellicott. 
All which was perfected by the middle of November following. 

Before Mr. Ellicott left Western New York for Philadelphia, he 
contracted with Thomas Morris to deliver on the Genesee river or 
shore of lake Ontario near the mouth of that river, one hundred 
barrels of pork, fifteen barrels of beef, and two hundred and 
seventy barrels of flour, for the supply of the surveyors and their 
assistants the ensuing season, Mr. Ellicott, at the request of the 
Agent General, made a list of articles to be provided for the 
next season's campaign, consisting of a diversity of articles, from 
pack-horsos to horse shoes, nails and gimlets — from tents to towels 
— from barley and rice to chocolate, coffee and tea, and from camp- 
kettles to teacups; estimated to amount to $7,213 33. This state- 
ment, however, did not include medicine, or "wine, spirits, loaf 
sugar, &c., for head quarters." Mr. Ellicott likewise calculated 
the wages of surveyors and other hands for six months of the next 
season at $19,830. 

Although the great divisions of the Holland Purchase was 
intended to consist of townships six miles square, the division of 
the tract among the three sets of proprietors, the Indian reserva- 
tions which were not included in the townships, as well as the 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 405 

offsets and sinuosities existing in most of the boundaries, prevent a 
large portion of the townships conforming to this standard. The 
townships arc situated in ranges running from south to north. 
The townships in each range of townships beginning to number 
one at the south, raising regularly in number to the north, and the 
ranges of townships beginning to number one at the east, and 
proceeding regularly west, to fifteen. 

The first plan of the agent general of the company, relative to 
the subdivision of the townships, was to divide each township 
which was six miles square into sixteen portions one and a half 
miles square, to be called sections, and each section again subdivi- 
ded into twelve lots, each lot to be three fourths of a mile long 
(generally north and south,) and one fourth of a mile wide containing 
about one hundred and twenty acres each; presuming that a w-ealthy 
farmer would buy a section, whereon to locate himself and his 
progeny. Twenty four townships were surveyed or commenced 
to be surveyed in conformity to that plan, although the uniformity 
of the size and shape of lots was often departed from, where large 
streams, such as the Tonawanda running through the townships, 
were, for convenience, made boundaries of lots. From experience 
however it was ascertained that, in the purchase of land, each 
individual whether father, son, or son-in-law, would locate himself 
according to his own choice or fancy. That this formal and 
regular division of land into farms, seldom was found to be in 
conformity to the topography of the country, nor to the different 
requirements as to quantity, likewise that the addition of sections to 
townships and lots, rendered the descriptions of farms more complex, 
and increased the liability to err in defining any particular location; 
lor which reasons, the practice of dividing townships into sections 
was abandoned, and thereaft^M-. the townships were simply divided 
into lots of about sixty chains or three fourths of a mile square, 
which could be divided into farms to suit the topography of the 
land and quantity required by the purchasers. In those townships 
in which the surveys had been commenced to divide them into sec- 
tions, and not completed, the remaining sections were divided 
into four lots only of "three fourths of a mile square each. These 
lots consequently contained about \\\rv.v, hundred and sixty acres 
each, but could not be laid oii' exactly uniform in shape and area, 
for the same I'eason heretofore given in a note, why the townships 
c )'>^Jd not be laid off exactly uniform. 



406 HISTORY OF THE 

■0 

Early in the spring of n^8J Mr. Ellicott dispatched Adam 
Hoo[)s. Jr., a nephew of Major Adam Hoops, from Philadelphia, to 
Western New York, with general powers to prepare for opening 
the approaching campaign of surveying the Holland Purchase, and 
to co-operate with Augustus Porter, who had previously been 
engaged to procure horses, employ hands, and transport stores from 
the places of their delivery by the contractor, Mr. Morris, to the 
places where they would be required for consumption. 

The principal surveyors engaged during the active season of 
1798, in township, meridian line and reservation surveys, and in 
lake and river traverses, were as follows: — Joseph and Benjamin 
Ellicott, John Thompson, Richard M. Stoddard, George Burgess, 
James Dewey, David Ellicott, Aaron Oakford, Jr. Augustus 
Porter, Seth Pease, James Smedly, William Shepherd, George 
Eggleston. In addition to these, were two Frenchmen, Messrs. 
Haudecaur, and Autrechy, who were employed in some surveys of 
Niagara river and the Falls. The last were rather engineers than 
surveyors. Mr. James Brisbane, then in his minority, came from 
Philadelphia, with Mr. Thompson, as clerk and store keeper. 

Mr. Ellicott and his assistants having arrived on the territory, his 
first business was to ascertain and correctly establish the east line of 
the Purchase. He caused the Pennsylvania line to be accurately 
measured from the southwest corner of Phelps and Gorham's 
purchase, or the 82d mile stone, twelve miles west, and there 
erected a stone monument for the southeast corner of the Holland 
Purchase. The whole company was then divided into parties, to 
prosecute the undertaking to advantage. The principal surveyor 
Joseph Ellicott, assisted by Benjamin Ellicott, one other surveyor 
and the requisite number of hands, undertook to run the eastern 
boundary line. The other surveyors, each with his quota of hands 
were assigned to run different township lines. 

A line running due north from the monument established as the 
southeast corner by Mr. Ellicott, to the boundary line between the 
United States and the dominions of the King of Great Britain in 
lake Ontario, according to the deeds of conveyance from Robert 
Morris to the company, constitutes the east line of their purchase. 
To run a true meridian by the surveyors compass Mr. Ellicott 
knew to be impractible,* he therefore determined to run this line 

* Wo make use of this strong asservation, beiiiff as we feel fully authorized by the 
following statement, which, although not originally written for this work, has been 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 407 

by an instrument, having for its basis the properties of the "Transit 
instrument" (an instrument made use of, to observe the transits of 
the heavenly bodies,) improved for this purpose by a newly invented 
manner of accurately arriving at the same; to effect this object, an 
instrument possessing all these qualities, was manufactured in Phil- 
adelphia by his brother, Benjamin EUicott, as no instrument pos- 
sessing all the qualities desired, was then to be found in the United 
States. 

This instrument has no magnetic needle attached to it, but its 
peculiar qualities and prominent advantages are, that by means of 

put in our hands by the writer. For the benefit of persons interested in the process of 
surveying-, we publish the whole statement, although an extract from it would have fully 
sustained our assertioa: — 

VARIATION OF THE MAGNETIC NEEDLE. 

From divers publications emanating from really scientific writers, but predicated on 
speculative theory, without any regard to practicability or the real excellencies or 
defects of the magnetic needle, when applied to practical purposes; many well informed 
people, on general subjects, have been led to believe that, that instrument really 
possesses talismanic attributes and unerring precision; that it is always governed by, 
and true to never failing and well understood laws; that although it varies from indi- 
cating the true meridian, that the variation from truth, progresses slowly, constantly 
and regularly, at a rate clearly conceived and well understood by the scientific surveyor. 
If this position was correct, the needle could be for all practical purposes, a true and 
perfect index, whereby to ascertain any point of the compass, for the sights could 
easily be adjusted to the known variation of the needle. But this fine spun theory, 
whatever it may amount to in a scientific point of view, is entirely merged and 
wholly lost in the practical variation of the needle from itself, or rather its uncertainty, 
variability, and mutability. 

To support this position, I feel gratified that 1 have it in my power to produce an 
authority, which carries with it its own ponderous weight and relieves me from further 
urging my own views, or stating my own experience to prove the truth of the position. 
The following is an extract from a semi-official document prepared by the late Joseph 
EUicott, who was principal surveyor, and I may say, sole engineer for the Holland 
Company in locating and surveying their large tract of land in Western New York. 

The document referred to, was an explanatory accompaniment of Mr. EUicott's report 
to the agent general at Philadelphia, of the survey of the Holland Purchase into town- 
ships. The deliberate and unqualified statement of so great a scientific and practical 
surveyor on such an important occasion, must be admitted as unquestionable 
authority. It will be seen that what Mr. EUicott meant by " the variation of the 
needle," was nothing more nor less than its fickleness and uncertainty. 

" The diflTerence that is discernable in the size of the several townships, is occasioned 
by the variation of the needle, which from certain occult causes is found to differ essen- 
tially between amj two stations that may he fixed on, and much more between some 
stations than others. Hence in taking the magnetic courses of any two townships, it 
will follow that a disproportion in size of the several townships will necessarily arise, as 
the needle is seldom Icnoicn to preserve a uniform position, between places but a few 
hundred yards from each other: so that inaccuracies will arise though the greatest 
circumspection should be observed in correcting courses." 

In the foregoing statement (although I confess it adds nothing comparatively to the 
weight of the original) I fully concur, and feel confident in asserting that if a surveyor, 
being guided by the magnetic needle only, strikes, or very nearly strikes his intended 
point, he has more reason to give credit to good luck, than to any scientific acquirements, 
or practical knowledge. 

Batavia, Sept. 1848. EBENEZER MIX. 



408 HISTORY OF THE 

its telescopic tube and accurate manner of reversing, by it, a straight 
line can be correctly, and, comparatively speaking, expeditiously 
run. But such an instrument, by reason of its magnifynig powers 
is as illy calculated to run a line through woods and underbrush, as 
would be a microscope to observe the transits of the satelites of 
Herschel. Therefore it became necessary to cut a vista through 
the woods on the highlands and on level ground, sufficiently wide 
to admit a clear and uninterrupted view. 

Mr. EUicott having provided himself with such an instrument, 
caused the vista to be cut, some three or four rods wide, ahead of 
the transit instrument, in a north direction as indicated by the com- 
pass, which sometimes led the axemen more than the width of the 
vista from the meridian sought; therefore the true meridian line, 
called the transit line, from the name of the instrument with which 
it was run, being of no width, runs sometimes on one side of the 
middle of the vista cut in advance, and sometimes on the other. 

Thus prepared with a suitable instrument, Mr. Ellicott, assisted 
by his brother Benjamin Ellicott, together with surveyors and their 
assistants, established a true meridian line north from the corner 
monument, by astronomical observations, and pursued it with the 
transit instrument, taking new astronomical observations at different 
stations, to guard against accidental variations. 

The progress in running this line was slow, as it could not be 
otherwise expected, considering the great amount of labor neces- 
sarily to be performed, in clearing the vista, and taking other pre- 
paratory measures, and above ail, the vast importance of having it 
correctly established, which rendered anything like precipitance or 
haste an experiment too hazardous to be permitted. June 12th, the 
party on this line had advanced so far north that they established 
their store house at Williamsburg, (about three miles south of the 
village of Geneseo,) and soon after Mr. Ellicott made it his head 
quarters at Hugh M'Nair's in that vicinity. On the 22d day of 
November following, eighty-one and a half miles of the line was 
established, which brought them within about thirteen miles of the 
shore of lake Ontario; the precise date of its completion is unknown. 

This line defined the west bounds of Mr. Church's hundred 
thousand acres, but passed through the Cotringer, Ogden, and 
Cragie tracts, about two miles from their west boundaries, as 
described in the deeds of conveyance from Robert Morris to the 



HOLLAiND PURCHASE. 409 

several grantees; but as their titles were of a later date than the 
conveyance to the Holland Company, no deviation from the first 
established meridian was made by Mr. EUicott. 

On arriving at the south line of the hundred thousand acre tract 
conveyed by Robert Morris to Leroy Bayard and M'Evers, now 
called the Connecticut tract (the conveyance of which, from Robert 
Morris, claimed seniority over that to the Holland Company,) Mr. 
Ellicott found that his meridian intersected the south line of that tract, 
one hundred sixty-six chains and thirty links east of its south-west 
corner, on which he moved his position that distance to the west, 
from which point he ran the transit due north to lake Ontario. 

The clashing of the boundary lines of the several tracts, located 
from the north end of the Reserve, as conveyed by Mr. Morris, and 
the Holland Company's land which was located from the south, was 
arranged in the following manner, and taken possession of accord- 
ingly. The conveyance of the Connecticut tract by Mr. Morris, 
to Watson, Cragie and Greenleaf, being anterior to that of the 
Holland Purchase to Wilhelm Willink and others: that tract 
retained its full size and location, according to the description in 
the deed. The Ogden and Cotringer tracts, held their size and 
shape, but their location was moved about two miles east, and fixed 
according to the original intention of Mr. Morris, there being 
land sutficient in that direction, on the Reserve, not otherwise appro- 
priated by him. The conveyance of the Cragie tract being 
likewise subsequent to that of the Holland Purchase, about two 
miles of the western part of it was cut off by the location of that 
tract; and as the triangular tract, Phelps and Gorham's tract, west of 
Genesee river, and the forty thousand acre tract, with their prior 
conveyances and locations, bounding it on the east, which prevented 
its extension in that direction, was consequently reduced in area to 
between thirty-three and thirty-four thousand acres. The proprie- 
tors however not being content to rest quietly sustaining this loss, 
have since instituted suits in ejectment against the occupants of lands, 
west on the Holland Purchase and south on the Ogden tract, to 
try the legal interpretation of their rights, in extending their limits 
in one way or the other of those directions, but have failed in both. 

Althouo-h the eastern bank of the Niagara river had been trav- 
ersed, the east bounds of the New York mile strip had not been 
ascertained, and the state would participate in it no further than 
to give the proprietors of the land adjoining, to wit: the Holland 



410 HISTORY OF THE 

Company, liberty to run the line at their own expense, and if so 
run as to be approved by the Surveyor General of the state, it 
should be established as permanently located, and passed a ]ixw to 
that effect. This was, undoubtedly, the most difficult piece of 
surveying ever performed in the state. Some preliminary matters 
as to the construction of the terms of the treaty or agreement 
between New York and Massachusetts had to be first settled. At 
the north end where the river disembogued itself into the lake, at 
almost right angles with its shore, there could no doubts arise; but 
at the south end of the straits or river a different state of things 
existed; lake Erie narrowed gradually and became a river; where 
the lake ends and the river begins may be considered a difficult 
question; but it was finally agreed between the parties interested, 
the river should be deemed to extend to where the water was one 
mile wide and there cease; the line of the strip east of this point, 
extending to the shore of lake Erie on an arc of a circle, of one 
mile radius, the centre being in the eastern bank at the termination 
of the lake and head of the river, giving to the mile strip all the 
land lying within a mile of the river, whether east or south. For 
this arc of the circle, which could not be practically run, a repe- 
tition of short sides, making a section of a regular polygon, was 
substituted. Seth Pease, a scientific surveyor and astronomer, was 
engaged, in the fall of 1788, to run this line, who executed the 
survey in a masterly manner, and to the satisfaction of all the 
parties concerned. 

During the year 1799 and 1800, few events transpired relative to 
the settlement of the Holland Purchase, which i-equire a circum- 
stantial detail, or would admit of one which would be interesting to 
the reader. The surveyors and their assistants, under the direction 
of their principal, Joseph Ellicott, continued the same steady routine 
of encamping in the woods, pitching their tents, transporting pro- 
visions, surveying lines, and striking their tents and removing to 
new positions; and although at times many individuals, undoubtedly, 
suffered pain and endured hardships, such incidents must have been 
caused by accidental occurrences, unforeseen events, or careless- 
ness and imprudence in themselves or their companions, as the well 
supplied coffers of the Company, accompanied by their liberality, 
furnished sufficient means, and the provident care of Mr. Ellicott 
kept their store-houses well supplied with the best kind of provisions 
for that service, as well as all other necessaries and many of the 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 41 1 

comforts of life. This might be seen from Mr. Ellicott's catalogue 
of items, for the outfit of the first campaign, and its cost, heretofore 
refered to, which was adopted and its contents provided. Of those 
events, however, the following deserve notice. 

The Indian treaty of 1797, in which the Indian title to the Hol- 
land Purchase whs extinguished, except to certain reservations, as 
has been before stated, prescribed the quantities contained in, and 
general shape and location of each reservation, leaving the precise 
location of the boundary lines to be determined thereafter. The 
Indians reserved two hundred thousand acres, one indefinite portion 
of which was to be located on Buffalo creek, at the east end of lake 
Erie, and the remainder on the Tonawanda creek. As the New 
York reservation excluded the Holland Company's land from the 
waters of Niagara river, and from the* shore of lake Erie one mile 
southerly from the river, it became very important to the company 
to secure a landing place and harbor at the mouth of Buffalo creek, 
and sufficient ground adjoining whereon to eslablish a commercial 
and manufacturing village or city. 

Capt. William Johnston, an Indian trader and interpreter, settled 
himself near the mouth of the Buffalo creek at an early period, 
under the auspices of the British Government, and remained there 
until the Holland Company had effected their purchase. His 
dwelling house stood south of Exchange street and east of Wash- 
ington street; he had other buildings north of Exchange and east 
of Washington streets. Capt. Johnson had procured of the Indians 
by gift or purchase two square miles of land at the mouth of Buffalo 
creek, including a large portion of the tei'ritory on which now 
stands the city of Buffalo. He had also entered into an agreement 
with the Indians, which amounted to a life lease, of a certain mill 
site and the timbered land in its vicinity, on condition of supplying 
the Indians with all the boards and plank they wanted for building 
at, and near the creek. This site was about six miles east of 
the mouth of the creek. 

Although Johnston's title to this land was not considered to have 
the least validity, yet the Indians had the power and the inclination 
to include it within their reservation, unless a compromise was 
made with Johnston, and taking into consideration his influence 
with them, the agents of the company concluded to enter into the 
following agreement with him, which was afterwards fully complied 
with and performed by both of the parties: — 



412 HISTORY OF THE 

Jonhston agreed to surrender his right to the said two square 
miles, and use his influence with the Indians to have that tract and 
his mill site left out of their reservation, in consideration ot" which 
the Holland Company agreed to convey by deed to said Johnston, 
six hundred and forty acres, including the said mill site and 
adjacent timbered land; together with forty-five and a half acres, 
being part of said two square miles, including the buildings and 
improvements, then owned by said Johnston, four acres of which 
was to be on the "point." These lands as afterwards definitely 
located, were a tract of forty one and a half acres, bounded north 
by Seneca street, west by Washington street, and south by the 
little Buftalo creek; the other tract was bounded, east by Main 
street, south-westerly by the Buffalo creek, and north-westerly by 
little Buffalo creek, containing about four acres. This matter will 
again be referred to, in connexion with some farther notice of early 
events in Buffalo. 

Mr. Ellicott, before leaving Philadelphia — in the time that 
intervened between his appointment, and his departure — was 
actively engaged in making all the necessary preparations for the 
campaign. David Rittenhouse, the eminent American philosopher, 
was then of the firm of "Rittenhouse and Potts," mathematical 
and astronomical instrument makers, in Philadelphia; orders were 
given them for compasses, chains, and staffs — all things in their 
line, necessary to surveyor's outfits. Letters were written to 
Augustus Porter at Canandaigua, to have ready such provisions, 
pack-horses, axe-men and chainmen, as he had been ordered to 
provide; to Thomas Morris at the same place, requesting his 
prompt performance of some agencies that had been entrusted to 
him; to different persons at New York, Albany, Fort Schuyler, and 
Queenston, containing orders to facilitate the transportation of 
stores, and aid the surveying parties in getting upon the ground, 
and in supplying themselves with all things necessary for going 
into the woods. All things requisite were remembered, and 
provided for. Clark and Street, at Chippewa, were ordered to 
have ready, two yoke of oxen and a stout lumber wagon; (that 
was undoubtedly the pioneer ox team upon the Holland Purchase, 
other than such as had been used upon the portage;) even axe 
handles and tent poles were not forgotten. To each principal 
surveyor, or sub-agent, starting from Philadelphia or elsewhere, 
written orders were issued, what route to pursue, where to first 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 413 

rendezvous, where to draw his suppUes, and where to commence 
operations. Formulas were made out for each surveyor, prescri- 
bing definitely the manner of his duties, of marking hnes, keeping 
field notes, and generally embracing all the minutias of his opera- 
tions. It was as if the General of an army was acting as his own 
commissary, and putting a force into the field, distributing it, and 
making all things ready for a campaign; and the records of our war 
department would hardly furnish better examples of systematic and 
well ordered enterprises. Embraced in these preliminary proceed- 
ings, was a correspondence with Mr. Williamson in reference to a 
road from the west branch of the Susquehannah to the "Genesee 
country;" and with the Surveyor General of this state in reference 
to the laying out of towns at Lewiston and Fort Sclilosser. 

Mr. Ellicott arrived at Canandaigua, 12th June, 1798. The 
reader will best be enabled to catch glimpses of early events — 
those that attended the surveys, and preceded land sales and the 
commencement of settlement — by occasional references to, and 
extracts from his correspondence, — the only existing records. 

A letter from Mr. Thompson to Mr. Ellicott, dated at Buffalo 
creek, states that the stores had all arrived safely at Schlosser, 
except what had been left with Mr. Brisbane at the "Chenesee" 
river; that Mr. Hoops, who had arrived in advance of him, had 
gone on to ''Chetawque" * where he had been joined by Mr. 
Stoddard; that he himself was engaged in getting "axes ground 
and handled, and in sundry other things preparatory to going to 
the woods." Letters follow this very soon, by which it would 
seem that the camp was erected at ''Chautauque creek," and all 
things prepared for active operations, as early as the 19th of June. 

Messrs. Smedley and Egleston, were located at Buffalo creek, 
with surveying parties. In a letter to Mr. Ellicott, written from 
there, under date, June 27th, Mr. Egleston says the goods have 
arrived, and that the "family in the house on the hill" are about 
to move out, to make room for the surveyors. Mr. Ellicott, it 
would seem, had arrived at Schlosser. Anticipating his arrival at 
Buffalo, Mr. Egleston, very providently suggests that he had 
better bring with him some boards to make a mapping table, as 
there were none to be had in their new location — "Mr. Winne 
having carried off" those that were in the partition." 

* These are specimens of the early orthography of names of places : not introduced 
as errors of the writer, for he was well educated, and scientific in his profession. 



414 HISTORY OF THE 

The two Frenchmen that have been named, made but poor help 
in the woods. While the other surveyors dashed off in different 
directions, located their camps, and soon reported themselves to 
Mr. Ellicott as actively engaged in their duties; making no com- 
plaints of hard fare; the Frenchmen were a constant annoyance, 
making complaints by letter as often as messengers could be found 
to carry them. Autrechy took up his quarters at " Fort Schlosser," 
from which place he reports himself to Mr. Ellicott: 

" FoKT Schlosser, 4th July, 1798. 
"This comes to accjuaint you that I arrived here this morning, and find an agreeable 
place, but nothing here to eat or drink. I should be glad to know how I am to be sit- 
uated for provisions. I request you will let me know on the receipt of this, how I shall 
be accommodated for these articles. I would be glad to see you here yourself. Should 
that not be the case, please write rae on the receipt of this. 1 left my companion Mr. 
Haudecaur at Fort Schlosser, and determined to go by water to take care of the instru- 
ments he brought with him. 

I am, sir, yours, 

ALEX'R AUTRECHY." 

Haudecour, in making some surveys at the Falls, on the Canada 
side, was arrested and detained as a spy, and afterwards by the 
American commandant at Niagara, upon suspicion that he was a 
"French emissary." His release in both instances, cost Mr. 
Ellicott a good deal of trouble. 

It may not be uninteresting to the reader to see some account of 
the first assault and battery that occurred upon the Holland Pur- 
chase — our own race being the participants — of which we have 
any record. The unfortunate French " engineer and surveyor,'" 
seems to have had the especial faculty of disagreeing with his 
woods associates. Mr. Egleston makes the following candid report 
to Mr. Ellicott, of an affray which happened at his quarters. The 
reader will conclude that he makes out a good ex parte justification; 
a clear case of self-defence, and that not resorted to until he had 
complied with a portion of the scriptural injunction: — 

Joseph Ellicott, Esquire, " Buffalo Creek, Nov. 22. 1798. 

Dear iS'i?',— Yesterday, the 20th, about noon, Mr. Brown and myself walked out and 
staid a little longer than common dinner time, when we came back, we found that 
Haudecour had been swearing to the cooks, for not setting the table before we return- 
ed. I then came into the office, took up my pen and began to write an order; Haude- 
cour then began with me, he being a little vexed on account of my having sent on his 
matrass by the wagon, and other little disputes, and at the time of my writing, he put 

me out with his talking. I told him to go to , and not to be bothering me. With 

this, he gave me a slap on the side of my face, and I turned the other side to him. He 
struck it a full stroke with his fist. I then perceived that he was in earnest. I caught 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 415 

up the first thing I could see, which happened to be a long walking stick. I retreated 
back so that 1 could get a good chance, and I let slip, which hit him on the head with 
the but end. He came up to me again. By that time I was fast in the corner of the 
office, without any kind of a weapon to defend myself with, for Mr. Pease had taken 
the stick from me, and was trying to part us. Whilst the rascal was kicking me with 
all his might into my body, Mr. Brown then stepped up and we were soon parted. It 
happened very well for Haudecour that there were none of our hands in the house at 
the time that the affray happened. This he was well apprised of, for before he offered 
to strike me, he looked into the kitchen to see if any of them were there. He after- 
wards paid for it. The business soon got wind, and the hands that were at work in the 
neighborhood quickly came up. The old fellow was soon hustled out of the house, and 
he marched over to Palmer's. There was not one in the party but who wished to get 
the first stroke at hiin. I told them not to strike him, but to let him go about his 
business. The letters you gave me for him, when you went from here, 1 never have 
copied, on account of his coming in so quick after you went out. When he saw the 
letter lying on the desk, he took it up and has since detained it. though I have often 
asked him for it in the hearing of Mr. Pease, and he has as often promised me that he 
had no objection to my copying the letter, and would let me have it by and by. But 
God knows that he has not done any thing since he came from Schlosser, only wasting 
of paper. He says he will give you the the letter when he gets to your quarters. Mr. 
Brown was witness to the business. 

1 am, sir, with the greatest respect, your hbl. servt, 

GEORGE EGLESTON. 

It would appear that Mr. Ellicott was not long in discovering 
that he (or their general agent in Philadelphia,) had made a bad 
. selection of men in these two instances, with reference to their adap- 
tation to Ufe in the wilderness, and the surveyors' camp; their stay 
was short. We hear no more of Haudecour, after the affray at 
Buftalo, except the allusion to him and his associate, in a letter to 
Mr. Ellicott from J. G. Van Staphorst, a connection of one of the 
Dutch proprietors, who had been upon the Purchase at that early 
day. The letter is dated at " Oldenbarneveldt," (Oneida county,) 
November 19th, 1798. The extract is as follows: — "Mr. Autre- 
chy took a sketch of Cazenovia, at Mr. Linklaen's, and is now busy 
at that of Oldenbarneveldt; but is prevented by the badness of the 
roads from going to the Black river. I think I shall ged rid, how- 
ever, of his agreeable company; and really I wont be sorry for it. 
How does the other noble engineer, at Fort Schlosser? has he 
finished yet his canal ? and how did he digest your last letter from 
Buffalo creek, befoi-e we departed from there t I am anxious to 
hear all that from yourself before I get to Philadelphia."* 

* The only clue the author can get to the objects of surveys at the Falls, is contained 
in the above extract. The inference is, that Mr. Cazenove, as an incipient measure 
upon the Holland Purchase, had employed the French engineers to make some tests of 
the practicability of a canal around the Falls. In a letter to Mr. Ellicott, Haudecour 
informs him that he liad finished taking the levels upon Gill creek. 



416 HISTORY OF THE 

Of these Pioneer adventurers one still survives, — James Bris- 
bane, Esq. of Batavia, long known as an active, enterprising, 
business man; and even now, vigorous in mind and body, superin- 
tending a large estate, incident to which is a leading participation 
in a rail-road direction. He is the oldest living resident of the 
Holland Purchase, — or in other words, there is no person now 
living, who came in at as early a period of survey and settlement.* 

To him the author is indebted for some reminiscences of the 
primitive advent. The party started from Philadelphia in April, 
1798, taking different routes; Mr. Thompson, the principal in this 
expedition, and Mr. Brisbane, coming by the way of New York, 
with the stores and surveyor's instruments, and camp equipage.f 
When the batteaux with which they had came from Schenectady, 
arrived at the mouth of the Genesee river, the stores, &:c. were 
divided, Mr. Thompson proceeding by the way of Niagara river, 
to Buffalo with a part of them, designed for use in the western 
portion of the Purchase; and Mr. Brisbane taking charge of the 
remainder to convey upon the eastern part of the Purchase, took 
them over the portage at the Genesee falls, and up the Genesee 
river to Williamsburg, where a surveyor's store house was just 
established. 

It having heretofore been observed that an influence was exerted in 
Canada, detrimental to the progress of early settlement upon the Hol- 
land Purchase, it is but justice here to remark, that Mr. Ellicott upon 
his arrival here, found in no quarter more cordial cooperation and 
friendly offices, than he met at the hands of some of the prominent men 
upon the other side of the river. Among them were Judge Hamilton 
at Queenston, Clark & Street at Chippewa, Mr. Douglass the mer- 
chant, and Col. Warren the commandant at Fort Erie. In all their 
correspondence with Mr E., they seem to have wished well to the 
enterprise in which he was engaged, and to have considered rightly 
that the interest of their locality was to be vastly benefitted by the 

* The statement is thus qualified, in consideration of the fact, that Judge Cook of 
Lewiston, whose name has been already introduced, came in the year previons — yet 
he was attached to the g^arrison at Niagara, aud had at first, no identity with survey or 
settlement; though, as will be seen in subsequent pages, his father's family and him- 
self, were early pioneer settlers. 

t Mr. Brisbane mentions the fact that Mr. Thompson, had, previous to this advent, 
while connected with Andrew Ellicott in surveys in the neighborhood of Piesquo Isle, 
constructed a sail-boat there, with which he and" others, had made the journey to Phila- 
delphia, via Niagara Falls, Oswego, Oneida lake, and New York. It was considered 
so remarkable an adventure, that tlie boat was put up in Independence Square, aud kept 
as a show until it rotted down. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 417 

settlement and improvement of this region. It will have been 
observed that Capt. Bruff, the commandant at Fort Niagara, had 
early intimated to the Indians, the necessity of opening a road from 
Lewiston to Tonavvranda village. Judge Hamilton and a Mr. Canby 
at Queenston, followed up this suggestion by an early cooperation 
with iMr. Ellicott, in measures to secure the desirable object. 

The first principal stations of the surveyors — their head quarters 
or depots — were at Buffalo creek and Williamsburgh; before the 
close of 1798, however, the principal establishment was located at 
the Transit line, (Stafford,) the locality designated as "Transit 
store house;" Mr. James Brisbane, moving his quarters from Wil- 
liamsburgh, continued as the principal clerk or agent. While upon 
the Purchase in 1798, Mr. Ellicott's time was prmcipally spent at 
Buffalo creek, Williamsburgh, and upon the eastern Transit line. 

In the spring of 1798, when the surveys of the Holland Purchase 
first commenced, all the travel between the Phelps and Gorham 
tract and Buffalo was on the old Indian trail: the winter previous, 
however, the legislature of this state passed an act appointing 
Charles Williamson a commissioner, to lay out and open a state 
road from Cannewagus on Genesee river to Buffalo creek on lake 
Erie, and to Lewiston on the Niagara river. To defray the expense 
of cutting out these roads, the Holland Company subscribed five 
thousand dollars. Mr. Williamson laid out and established the 
roads in 1798, generally adhering to the course of old Indian trails; 
but they were not opened throughout according to contract, under 
his superintendence. The first wagon track opened upon the Hol- 
land Purchase, was by Mr. Ellicott, as a preliminary step in com- 
mencing operations, early in the season of '98. He employed a 
gang of hands to improve the Indian trail, so that wagons could 
pass upon it, from the east transit to Buffalo creek. In 1801 he 
opened the road from transit line as far west as Vandeventer's. 
The whole road was opened to LeRoy before the close of 1802.* 

But little reference can be had to the order of time in noting the 
events of this period; up to the period of the commencement 
of land sales and settlements, our sketches must necessarily be 
desultory. 

The Hon. Nathaniel W. Howell of Canandaigua, was, as 
early as this season (1798) Mr. Ellicott's legal adviser, in several 

* Not wholly upon the present route. The first road opened, was from Batavia, via 
Dunham's Openings, &c., coming out at Vande venter's. 
27 



418 HISTORY OF THE 

matters connected with his primitive duties. Some embarrassment 
occurring connected with the Indian reservation at Cattaragus, he 
gave him, by letter, his legal opinion. This circumstance is noted 
principally, to observe, that the author has before him the paper 
above referred to, and a recent letter from the same hand, written 
plainly and legibly, and evincing a memory, and an intellect gen- 
erally, vigorous and unimpaired. Fifty years intervene between 
the dates of the two letters. There are but few instances of so 
extended a period of active participation in the affairs of life; and 
still fewer instances of a life that has so adorned the profession to 
which he belongs, and been as eminently useful and exemplary. 
To him, and to such as him — his early cotemporary, for instance — 
Gen. Vincent Mattheavs, (and others of his cotemporaries that 
could be named,) is the highly honorable profession of the law, in 
Western New York, indebted for early and long continued examples 
of those high aims, dignity, and exalted integrity, which should be 
its chief and abiding characteristics. They have passed, and are 
passing away. If days of degeneracy should come upon the pro- 
fession — renovation become necessary — there are no better prece- 
dents and examples to consult, than the lives and practice of the 
pioneer lawyers. 

Mr. Brisbane first saw Buffalo, in October, 1798. There was 
then the log house of Middaugh and Lane — a double log house — 
about two squares from Main street, a little north of the present 
line of Exchange street. Capt Johnston's half log and half framed 
house, stood a little east of the main building of the present Mansion 
House, near Washington street. There was a two story hewed 
log house, owned by Capt. Johnston, about where Exchange street 
now is, from six to eight rods west of Main street, where a tavern 
was kept by John Palmer. This was the first tavern in Buffalo. 
Palmer afterwards moved over to Canada, and kept a tavern there. 
Asa Ransom lived in a log house west of Western Hotel. Winne 
had a log house on bank of Little Buffalo, south of Mansion House. 
A Mr. Maybee, who afterwards went to Cattaragus, kept a little 
Indian store in a log building on west side of Main street, about 
twenty rods north of Exchange street. There was also a log 
house occupied by a man by the name of Robbins. The flats were 
open ground; a portion of them had been cultivated. Such was 
Buffalo — and all of Buffalo — in 1798. 
. Aaron Burr, and Alexander Hamilton, were in '98, both contrac- 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 419 

lors for lands west of the Genesee river; the former for a tract 
upon the Holland Purchase. The following letter would indicate 
that Mr. Burr, regarded himself at its date, a land proprietor in this 
region : — - 

"Sir— 5 May, '98. 

From the copy which you lately sent me of Mr. Ellicott's survey, it appears that the 
Tonawanta Bay falls within my tract on lake Ontario. If this Bay is as large as hath 
been represented to me, it ought not to be estimated as land, because it cannot belong 
to your company, and after any sale, will still be the property of the public. It will be 
necessary therefore, that Mr. Ellicott ascertain the figure and superficial contents of this 
Bay, which will enable us to determine the propriety of considering it as land. 
I am, respectfully, your obd't serv't, 

Th. Cazenove, Esq'R A. BURR. 

Mr. Burr had made the contract for the purchase of the tract, at 
tweh^e shillings per acre, at an early period of Holland Company 
ownership. The transaction was blended with other land specula- 
tions, and eventually the purchase was abandoned. Out of it, 
however, had originated a bond for twenty thousand dollars, which 
was given up. The surrendering of the bond gave rise to reports 
that Col. Burr had been bribed by the agents of the Holland 
Company, to favor the passage of the alien bill in our state 
legislature; the one allowing foreigners to hold real estate. John 
B. Church, Esq. had in some way identified himself with this report. 
He received a challenge from Col. Burr; the parties met at 
Hoboken, exchanged an ineffectual shot; Mr. Church apologized; 
and thus ended the land speculation and the duel. * 

The project of a town upon the Niagara river was early 
entertained by the public authorities of this state. The following 
letter from the Surveyor General had preceded Mr. Ellicott's 

Note. — The tract must have been located in what is now Orleans county, and the 
mouth or "Bay" of Oak Orchard creek, must have been called "Tonawanta Bay," 
from the fact that the stream heads principally in the Tonawanda swamp. 

*' A good anecdote however, came of it. Judge Burke of South Carolina, was Col. 
Burr's second. "Previous to leaving the city of New York, Colonel Burr presented to 
Judge Burke his pistol-case. He explained to the Judge, that the balls were cast 
intentionally too small ; that chamois leather was cut to the proper size, to put round 
them, but that the leather must be greased (for which purpose, grease was placed in the 
case,) or that there would be difficulty in getting the ball home. After the parties had 
taken their stand. Colonel Burr noticed the Judge hammering the ramrod with a stone, 
and immediately suspected the cause. When the pistol was handed him by his friend, 
he drew the ramrod, and ascertained that the ball was not home, and so informed the 
Judge ; to which Mr. Burke replied, ' I forgot to grease the leather; but you see he is 
ready, don't keep him waiting; just take a crack as it is; and Pll grease the next.' 
Colonel Burr bowed courteously, but made no reply, and discharged his pistol in the 
state it had been given to him. The anecdote for some time after, was the subject of 
merriment among those who had heard it." — Datis' Life of Burr. 



420 HISTORY OF THE 

arrival. He recommended Lewiston as the site, and complied 
generally with the requirements of the letter. 

Sir— "Albany, 24th May, 1798. 

Being directed by our legislature to make out and report the plan of a town to be 
erected in the most convenient place along the Niagara river, where the Indian title has 
been extinguished, I have to request the favor of you, while you are in that countPi', lo 
examine where such town can be most conveniently placed, and to furnish me with a 
survey and map thereof, together with your ideas of the most eligible manner of laying 
it out into streets, lots &c., as directed by the law enacted for that purpose. 

The expense of such survey, 1 shall pay to your order. 

I am with respect. Sir, your obd't serv't., 

Mr. Joseph Ellicott. S. DE WITT." 

The first crops raised upon the Holland Purchase, were at the 
Transit Store House. In the spring of '99, Mr. James Dewey was 
waiting there with a gang of hands, to start upon a surveying 
expedition as soon as the weather would permit. At the request 
of Mr. Brisbane, he cleared ten acres upon either side of the 
present road, twenty rods west of the Transit, which was mainly 
sowed with oats, though some potatoes and garden vegetables were 
planted. The early tavern keeper there — Mr. Walthers — reported 
by letter to Mr. Ellicott, that the yield was a good one, and fully 
demonstrated the goodness of the soil of the region he was 
surveying for settlement. 

In the summer of 1799, there not being a house erected on the 
road from the eastern Transit line to Buffalo, Mr. Busti, the Agent 
General of the company, authorized Mr. Ellicott by a letter dated 
June 1st, 1799, to contract with six reputable individuals, to locate 
themselves on the road from the eastern Transit to Buffalo creek, 
about ten miles asunder, and open houses of entertainment for 
travelers, at their several locations, in consideration of which, they 
were to have a quantity of land, from fifty to one hundred and fifty 
acres each, "at a liberal time for payment, without interest, at the 
lowest price the Company will sell their lands, when settlements 
shall be begun." 

Three persons accepted of this offer, to wit, Frederick Walthers 
who was then residing on the land, took one hundred and fifty 
acres in township number twelve, range one, west of and adjoining 
the eastern Transit, including the Company's store house, and being 
where the village of Stafford now stands. Asa Ransom located 
himself Sept. 1st, 1799, on one hundred and fifty acres, in township 
number twelve, range six, at what is now known as Ransom's 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 421 

Grove, or Clarence Hollow. Garritt Davis located himself Sept. 
16th, 1799, in tov^rnship number thirteen, range two, on one 
hundred and fifty acres on the south line of said township, and east 
of and adjoining the Tonawanda Indian Reservation, (the Buffalo 
road then run through the reservation, some distance north of its • 
present location.) These lots were severally laid out and surveyed 
for the purchasers, before the several townships in which they are 
located, were surveyed. These three persons erected and fur- 
nished comfortable houses for the purposes intended, as soon as 
practicable; which although not as splendid, yet were more eagerly 
sought, and cheerfully enjoyed by the forest traveler and land 
explorer, than any of the *'Astor Houses," "Americans," or 
"Eagles" of the present day. 

With the exception of those residing at Buffalo, Mrs. Garrett 
Davis and Mrs. Walthers, were the pioneer women upon the 
Holland Purchase. In 1800, Asa Ransom and Garrett Davis raised 
summer crops, which were second to those raised at the Transit 
Store House the year before. 

Next to Messrs. Brisbane and Cook, Gen. Timothy Hopkins of 
Amherst, Erie county, has been longest a resident upon the Hol- 
land Purchase. He became a settler in March, 1799; his first 
business was the management of Johnston's saw mill. In company 
•with. Otis Ingalls, he cleared land two miles east of Clarence Hollow 
and raised wheat upon it in 1800 — the first raised upon the Holland 
Purchase. The wheat was ground at Street's mill at the Falls. 
The General speaks of making an expensive trip to mill, the ferri- 
age for his three yoke of oxen at Black Rock, being twenty shil- 
lings each way; O'Neil, an Irishman, kept the ferry, the only resi- 
dent there. He built a framed house for Elias Ransom, seven 
miles east of Buffalo, which he thinks was the first framed building 
west of Batavia. It is now standing, and forms the rear of the 
dwelling house of a German settler, whose name is Baer. Mr. 
Ransom built the first framed barn, and set out the first orchard 
upon Holland Purchase. Douglass' store at Fort Erie furnished 
the glass and nails used by the first settlers. When the settlement 
first commenced. Fort Erie was garrisoned by a company of British 
soldiers. 

Gen. Hopkins is now seventy- two years old; a fine specimen of 
hale, hearty, and contented old age. If one should see him who 
was not acquainted with the history of the Holland Purchase, and 



422 HISTORY OF THE 

should be told that he had witnessed its entire conversion from a 
wilderness to what it is now, he would be incredulous, or regard 
either the country or the man a miracle. He has been the father 
of ten children, five of whom are married and settled upon the 
Purchase. Nelson K. Hopkins, Esq., of Buffalo, and T. A. Hop- 
kins, the present sheriti' of Erie county, are his sons. Mrs. Hop- 
kins, whom he married in 1805, died in 1848. 

The General says that Mr. Thompson, the surveyor, built the 
first saw mill at Williamsvillc in 1801; and the first dwelling house 
there; a block house, which has been clapboarded, and is still 
standing. 

Our old friend, Mountpleasant, speaks of the advent of the Hol- 
land Company surveyors — the brisk times it made; he had seen 
previously but few white people, other than soldiers and emigrants 
to Canada. As soon as the surveyors had taken possession of " Bill 
Johnston's house at Buffalo creek," he applied to them for employ- 
ment, and was axe-man for one of the parties the first season. He 
says that Mr. EUicott used to be called the " Surveyor General." 
Whiskey distilleries in early times were quite sure to follow settle- 
ment, but seldom preceded it. There was a distillery at Schlosser, 
while the country was in possession of the British; so says Mount- 
pleasant; and one of the first applications that Mr. Ellicott had 
for lands, came from one who dated his letter at Schlosser, and 
wished to turn out a copper still as the advance payment. 

The following vivid description of a tornado, on the Alleghany, 
is contained in a letter from Benjamin to Joseph Ellicott, dated, 
"Camp, twenty-one and a half miles north of Pennsylvania line, 
July 29, 1799." 

" While on the south side of the Allegany, we had small showers almost every day, 
but after crossing the river no rain fell till the 25th. I was at the Vista, in order to see 
if Mr. Gary was cutting in a right direction at 21^ miles, (the place that my camp is 
at present,) when the thunder sounded from a distance, the clouds ascended, and I 
saw through the instrument the trees bend on the mountains, to the north, (distance 
four miles,) but soon became obscured. I now prepared to receive it, — stripping from 
the hemlock tlie bark that had inclosed it for ages, which I placed against an old log, I 
crept under, when the rain came in torrents, the lightning flashed, thunder roared 
incessant, wind tearing from the sturdy trees their boughs, and dislocating others that 
had stood for many years apart, as if war had been declared against the forest; but at 
last the lightning ceased to glare, the thunder to sound terrific, and rain to fall in such 
abundance. I now crept out of my obscure but serviceable tenement, and cast my 
eyes along the avenue to the north, saw the mountain smoke with the late deluge, (the 
avenue on the south side of Allegany still invisible,) I returned to camp (distance one 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 423 

mile,) the surface of the mountain covered with water foaming down every crevice, 
in cascades, till it found rest in the valleys below. 

No part of the world can boast of a purer air than this place, and but few biting 
insects. The camp is at present on the top of a high hill or mountain, near a good 
spring." 

Extract from a letter from Joseph Ellicott to Paul Busti, dated, 
New Amsterdam, July 15th, 1799: — 

"Our business regardmg surveys, &c., is progressing with all 
dispatch, although the season is somewhat unfavorable on account 
of the abundance of wet weather. I expect to have six settlers 
placed on the road before I leave the woods. I have already had 
a great number of applications for those situations, and I intend to 
select such as I conceive the best calculated for the several stands. 

" It is with pleasure I can add, that myself and all the people in 
the Genesee Purchase in the Company's eiTiploy, continue in good 
health, which blessing may you and your family long enjoy." 

Extract of a letter from Paul Busti to Joseph Ellicott, dated 
Philadelphia, 15th August, 1800:— 

" The opening of the communication through the country, is a 
matter deemed of such importance, that it will not escape your 
attention, that the application of money for that purpose has been 
appropriated on a much larger scale than you thought necessary. 
By extending the amount of expenditures on that head, I mean to 
evince to you how much I am persuaded of the usefulness of having 
practicable roads cut out. The benefits of them being not only 
confined to the lands on which the present settlement is to be under- 
taken, but to those on which the two million acre tracts which 
afterwards are to be sold. You w^ill have to take care that the 
roads to be laid out at present, are to be cut in such a direction as 
to become of general advantage to the whole country. The 
know^ledge you possess of it vi^ill teach you where your attention 
ought to be most particularly directed. As T am speaking of roads, 
it will not be amiss to add a recommendation to you, that in making 
choice of the spot on which your office and residence is to be fixed, 
you will select a situation of an easy and convenient approach, so 
as to induce the emigrants to visit you." 

In Nov. 26th, 1800, Mr. Ellicott was at Albany on his vv^ay west, 
from which place he informs Mr. Busti by letter, that he had issued 
handbills, offering a part of the Holland Company lands for sale, 
and that he is informed that many purchasers are awaiting his 
arrival. On the 17th of Dec. he had arrived at Canandaigua, from 
which place he writes Mr. Busti that he is informed that land sales 
in that region were brisk, the sales of the season having amounted 
to more than in any five seasons preceding. 



424 HISTORY OF THE 

A portion of the handbill to which Mr. Ellicott alludes is copied. 
The issuing of it was the important step in the commencement of 
the settlement of the Purchase: — 

HOLLAND LAND COMPANY WEST GENESEO LANDS-INFORMATION. 



The Holland Land Company will open a Land Office in the ensuing month of 
September, for the sale of a portion of their valuable lands in the Genesee country. 
State of New York, situate in the last purchase made of the Seneca Nation of Indians, 
on the western side of Genesee river. For the convenience of applicants, the Land 
Office will be established near the centre of the lauds, intended for sale and on the 
main road, leading from the Eastern and Middle States to Upper Canada, Presque 
Isle in Pennsylvania, and the Connecticut Reserve. Those lands are situate, adjoining 
and contiguous, to the lakes Erie, Ontario, and the streights of Niagara, possessing the 
advantage of the navigation and trade of all the Upper lakes, as well as the river 
Saint Lawrence, (from which the British settlements derive great advantage,) also 
intersected by the Allegany river, navigable for boats of 30 or 40 tons burthen, to 
Pittsburgh and New Orleans, and contiguous to the navigable waters of the west 
branch of the Susquehannah river, and almost surrounded by settlements, where pro- 
vision of every kind is to be had in great abundance and on reasonable terms, renders 
the situation of the Holland Land Company Geneseo Lands more eligible, desirous, 
und advantageous for settlers than any other unsettled tract of inland country of equal 
magnitude in the United States. The greater part of this tract is finely watered (few 
exceptions) with never failing springs and streams, affijrding sufficiency of water for 
gristmills and other water works. The subscriber, during the years 179S and 1799, 
surveyed and laid off the whole of these lands into townships, a portion of which, to 
accommodate purchasers and settlers, is now laying off into lots and tracts from 120 
acres and upwards, to the quantity contained in a township. 

The lands abound with limestone, and arc calculated to suit every description of pur- 
chasers and settlers. Those who prefer land timbered with black and white oak, 
bickor}', poplar, chestnut, wild cherry, butternut, and dogwood, or the more luxuriant 
timbered with basswood or lynn, butternut, sugar-tree, white ash, wild cherry, cucum- 
ber tree, (a species of the magnolia,) and black walnut, may be suited. Those who 
prefer level land, or gradually ascending, affording extensive plains and valleys, will 
find the countrj- adapted to their choice. In short, such are the varieties of situations 
in this part of the Geneseo countr}% eveiy where almost covered with a rich soil, that 
it is presumed that all purchasers who may be inclined to participate in the advantages 
of those lands, may select lots from 120 acres to tracts containing 100,000 acres, that 
would fully please and satisfy their choice. The Holland Land Company, whose liber- 
alitv is so well known in this countr}', now offer to all those who may wish to become 
partakers of the growing value of those lands, such portions and such parts as they 
may think proper to purchase. Those who may choose to pay cash will find a liberal 
discount from the credit price. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 425 



CHAPTER II. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES GENERAL AND LOCAL AGENTS OF THE 

HOLLAND COMPANY. 



THEOPHILUS CAZENOVE. 



He was the first General Agent of the Holland Company. Little 
is known of his personal history. When the Company made their 
first purchases of lands in the interior of this state, and Pennsyl- 
vania, — soon after 1790 — he had arrived in this country, and 
acted as their agent. In all the negotiations, and preliminary 
proceedings, connected with the large purchase of Mr. Morris, of 
this region, the interests of the Company were principally confided 
to him. His name is intimately blended with the whole history of 
the title. When the purchase was perfected, he was made the 
General Agent, and under his auspices the surveys commenced. 
The author can only judge of him from such manuscript records as 
came from his hands. They exhibit good business qualifications, 
and great integrity of purpose. In all the embarrassments that 
attended the perfection of the title, he would seem to have been 
actuated by honorable and praiseworthy motives; and to have 
assisted with a good deal of abihty, the legal managers of the 
Company's interests. 

He returned to Europe in 1799, ending then his connection with 
the Company. His residence for a considerable period after this, 
was in London, after which, it was in Paris, where he died. 



426 HISTORY OF THE 

PAUL BUSTl. 



He was a native of Milan, in Italy; was born on the 17th of 
October, 1749. After receiving his education in his native country, 
he entered the counting house of his uncle in Amsterdam, where 
he afterwards established himself in business, married, and acquired 
a high reputation for business talents, industry and integrity. 

About retiring from commercial life, and connected with one 
who was interested in the Holland Company Purchase, he was 
induced to accept the General Agency at Philadelphia, in the place 
of Mr. Cazenove; aud most faithfully and satisfactorily did he 
perform its duties, for a period of twenty-four years, — up to the 
day of his death, July 23, 1824. He left no children. 

The author will here make a remark which is applicable not only 
to the general, but the local agents of the Holland Company. Of 
all that men leave behind them, after having been actively engaged 
in the affairs of this life, there is nothing that affords better tests 
of their characters and motives, than their private correspondence. 
It is here, that, in all the familiarity and confidence of private 
friendships — a necessary mutual reliance is indulged in — men are 
prone to throw off all disguise, and disclose the real motives by 
which they are governed. If indeed, they even here attempt the 
practice of concealment, it is seldom successful; what they would 
conceal will in some form or other, escape their precaution, and 
demonstrate itself. 

Few opportunities could be as ample for applying this test as 
those the author has enjoyed, connected with the entire agencies 
of the Holland Company. He has had free access to the great 
mass of correspondence that passed between general and local 
agents: much of it was private and confidential. And from such 
evidences, he is prepared to say, that few enterprises have ever 
been conducted upon more honorable principles, than was that 
which embraced the purchase, sale and settlement of the Holland 
Purchase. In all the instructions of the general to the local agents, 
the interests of the settlers, the prosperity of the country were 
made secondary in but a slight degree, to the securing to their 
principals, a fair and reasonable return for their investments. The 
general policy adopted, its ultimate results, it will occur to speak 
of in another place; but here it may be remarked — and it is no 
greater praise than the historian is fully authorized to bestow — 




IIIH. OF Wld [NDICOTT & CO. N- Y- 



a^^^y^^^^^ 



IF^WII^ IgW^^H. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 427 

that which should not be withheld, — that in the entire histoiy of 
settlement and improvement in our widely extended country, large 
tracts of the wilderness have no where fallen into the hands of 
individuals — become subject to private or associate cupidity — 
where the aggregate result has been more favorable, or advanta- 
geous to the settlers. 

The original proprietors — the eleven who constituted the prim- 
itive Holland Company — were merchants in the city of Amster- 
dam, (then in the RepubHc of Batavia.) They had little of the 
spirit of speculation; had acquired wealth by regular approaches 
to it; by careful investments and fair profits. They had spare 
capital and wished to invest it; their highest anticipations were 
perhaps, a realization of something near the per cent, interest which 
was generally fixed upon money in this country, instead of the 
then low per cent, that money yielded in Europe. And here it may 
be remarked, that considering the period of investment — 1792 and 
'93 — but ten years after the close of the war of the Revolution — 
these Dutch merchants were far in advance of the prevailing senti- 
ment in Europe, as to the success and permanency of the experi- 
ment of free government. We should respect their memories for 
such an earnest, at that early period, of confidence in the stability 
of our system. 

Mr. Busti's agency, as it will be observed, commenced before 
the completion of surveys and the opening of sales; consequently 
it was under his auspices that settlement began. In his early in- 
structions to Mr. Ellicott, he proposed liberal measures — seems to 
have started upon the basis that the interests of his principals and 
the interests of the settlers were mutual. While he guarded strictly 
and with rigid economy, the one, his views and his munificence 
were liberal, in reference to the other. Mr. Ellicott acted under 
genera] instructions from him, as to the opening of roads, building 
of mills and public buildings; but when he advised, as he often did, 
additional measures of improvement, or increased outlays, he was 
quite sure to be seconded by his principal. 

Next to Mr. Ellicott, Mr. Busti was more closely identified with 
the settlement of the Holland Purchase, than any other individual; 
his administration of the General Agency, embraced almost the entire 
period of pioneer settlement. The author knows little of his personal 
history. Saving the period of his mercantile enterprise in Amster- 
dam, the active years of his life were spent in the General Agency 



428 HISTORY OF THE 

of the Holland Company; the records of that company, therefore, 
are his principal history. They furnish conclusive evidence of 
clear judgement, industry, great integrity of purpose, and a dis- 
position to promote the interest of his principals, and the prosperity 
of that region of wilderness he was assisting to settle and improve. 
The following anecdote, which the author introduces as a note, 
answers the double purpose of getting a glimpse of the personal 
character of the General Agent, and of furnishing a succinct history 
of church benefices upon the Holland Purchase. The reader will 
bear in mind that Mr. Busti was a Catholic; and a liberal one it 
will be conceded, in view of his dislike of sectarianism. 

Note. — In the fall of 1820, Mr. Busti was visiting the land office in Batavia; the Rev. 
Mr. R. of the Presbjterian sect called on Mr. Busti and insisted on a donation of land 
for each society of his persuasion, then formed on the Holland Purchase. Mr. Busti 
treated the Rev. gentleman with due courtesy, but showed no disposition to grant his 
request. Mr. R. encouraged by Mr. Busti's politeness, persevered in his solicitations, 
day after day, until Mr. Busti's patience was almost exhausted, and what finally brought 
that subject to a crisis was, Mr. R's following Mr. Busti out of the land office, when 
he was going to take tea at Mr. Ellicott's and making a fresh attack on him in the piazza. 
Mr. Busti was evidently vexed, and in reply said " Yes, Mr. R. I will give a tract of 
one hundred acres, to a religious society in every town on the Purchase, and this is 
Jinis." "But" said Mr. R. "you will give it all to the Presbyterians, will you not; if 
you do not expressly so decide, the Sectarians will be claiming it, and ice shall receive 
very little benefit from it." "Sectarians, no" was Mr. Busti's hasty reply, I abhor 
sectarians, they had not ought to have any of it, and to save contention, I will give it 
to the first religious society in every town." On which Mr. Busti hastened to his tea, 
and Mr. R. home (about sixteen miles distant) to start runners during the night or the 
next morning, to rally the PresbA-terians in the several towns in his vicinity to apply 
first, and thereby secure the land to themselves. 

The land office was soon flooded with petitions for land from societies organized 
according to law and empowered to hold real estate and those who were not, one of 
Arhich was presented to Mr. Busti before he left, directed to "General Poll Busti," on 
which he insisted that it could not be from a religious society, for all religious societies 
read their bibles and know that P o double I, does not spell Paul. Amidst this chaos 
of applications, it was thought to be unadvisablo to be precipitant, in granting those 
donations, the whole responsibility now resting on Mr. Ellicott to comply with this 
vague promise of Mr. Busti; therefore conveyances of the "gospel land" were not 
executed for some space of time, notwithstanding the clamor of petitioners for " deeds 
of our land " during which time the matter was taken into consideration and system- 
atized, so far as such an operation could be, pains was taken to ascertain the merits of 
each application, and finally a tract, or tracts of land, not exceeding one hundred acres 
in all, was granted, free of expense, to one or more religious societies regularly organ- 
ized according to law, in each town on the purchase, where the Company had land 
undisposed of, which embraced ever}' town then organized on the purchase, except 
Bethany, Genesee county, and Sheldon, Wyoming county, the donees always being 
allowed to select out of the unsold farming land in each town. In some towns it was 
all given to one society, in others to two or three societies, separately, and in a few 
towns to four different societies of different sects, twenty-five acres to each. 

In performing this thankless duty, for the land was claimed as an absolute right by 
most of the applicants, the whole proceedings were so managed, under Mr. Ellicott's 
judicious directions, that amidst all the clamor and contention which, l"rom its nature 
such a proceeding must elicit, no complaint of partiality to any particular sect, nor of 
the undue weight of influence in any individual was over charged against the agent of 
the Company or his assistants acting under him. 




. OF WM. E-NOICOTT a CO 




C. CREIHE^ 



(ifo ^o^'WM.'^mmi^LiKiEmWc 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 429 

JOHN J. VANDER KEMP. 



This gentleman was the successor of Mr. Busti, entering upon 
the duties of general agent on the day of the death of his prede- 
cessor. He is a native of the city of Leyden, in the kingdom of 
Holland. His parents emigrated to the United States in 1788, and 
settled upon the Hudson, near Esopus, Kingston, Ulster county, 
New York. In 1794 the family changed their residence to the 
shores of Oneida lake, and soon after, to Oldenbarnevelt, in the 
town of Trenton, now Oneida county, where they enjoyed the 
society of Col. A. G. Mappa's family who were likewise emigrants 
from Holland, and of Mr. Gerrit Boon, who had commenced a 
settlement on the lands of the Company in the then county of Her- 
kimer, simultaneously with the commencement of another settle- 
ment about forty-five miles above Utica, by Col. John Linklaen, 
late of Cazenovia, Madison county. Col. Mappa having succeeded 
Mr. Boon in the land agency, Mr. Vander Kemp, early in life, 
entered the office as a clerk, succeeding H. J. Huidekoper, Esq., 
now of Meadville, Pennsylvania, who was appointed chief clerk in 
the office of the General Agency in Philadelphia. In 1804 Mr. 
Huidekoper accepted the agency of the Holland Company's lands 
in Pennsylvania, went to the Alleghany river, and Mr. Vander Kemp 
was called to occupy the situation vacated by him. Kte continued 
to occupy this position, until the death of Mr. Busti, in 1824, 
when he succeded him in the General Agency; having been before 
provisionally appointed as successor in case of resignation or death. 
Thus, as chief clerk, and General Agent, he has been connected 
with the affiiirs of the Holland Purchase of Western New York, 
from 1804 to the present period; or rather, was, until the final dis- 
posal of its interest. 

As in the case of his immediate predecessor, he has little personal 
history beyond the records of the General Agency. In succeeding 
Mr. Busti, he seems to have adopted his policy, and made him his 
pattern of strict integrity, and careful and judicious management. 
All that the author has seen coming from his hands; his correspon- 
dence, and business papers generally, are indicative of a high degree 
of business talents, and a matured and excellent judgment. He is 
well entitled to a full share of the encomium that has been already 
awarded, in the abstract, to the conduct of the General and Local 
Agencies. 



430 HISTORY OF THE 

Those who have enjoyed a personal acquaintance with Mr. 
Vander Kemp, give him the praise of great amiabiUty of character, 
intelligence, and fine social qualities. 

The early clerk in the office of the General Agency, and the 
after General Agent, — one thus identified with almost the entire 
history of this region, is yet a resident of Philadelphia, in the 
enjoyment of a competency of wealth, and what is far better, the 
respect and esteem of his fellow citizens, and a numerous circle of 
acquaintance, beyond his immediate locality, acquired in the course 
of an extended and active life. 



JOSEPH ELLICOTT. 



His history is so intimately blended with our main subject, that 
little beyond personal biography, is required in a separate form. 
No man has ever, perhaps, been so closely identified with the 
history of any region, as he is with the history of the Holland 
Purchase. He was not only the land agent, superintending from 
the start, surveys and settlement — exercising locally, a one man 
power and influence — but for a long period, he was far more than 
this. In all the early years of settlement, especially — in all things 
having reference to the organization of towns, counties, erection of 
public buildings, the laying out of roads, the establishment of Post 
Offices — in all that related to the convenience and prosperity of 
the region over which his agency extended — he occupied a 
prominent position, a close identity, that few, if any Patroons of 
new settlements have ever attained. 

His portrait — appropriately, as will be conceded — is made the 
frontispiece to our local annals; and the author congratulates 
himself, that the skill of the artists, has enabled him to present to 
the pioneers of the Holland Purchase, so correct a likeness of their 
old intimate acquaintance. 

The physiognomist, or the more modern professor of the philos- 
ophy of intellect and its developments, will not fail to discover, in 
the head and face presented, quite enough to attract his attention. 
There is the ample forehead, the clear and expressive eye, the com- 
pressed lip, the whole contour of the face, indicative of no ordinary 
man. Chance made him the founder of new settlements, the ruling 
spirit of backwoods enterprise, and high achievements in the work 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 431 

of progress and improvement. Had it cast his lot elsewhere, given 
to him other pursuits, other fields of action, his career would not 
have been one of mediocrity. 

The ancestors of Mr. EUicott, were Andrew EUicott and Ann 
Bye EUicott, natives of the town of Cullopton, in Wales. They 
came to this country in the year 1731. Andrew, who was a mem- 
ber of the society of Friends, had married Ann, who was not of 
that society; had committed an offence against the discipline of the 
society, termed "marrying out of Friends' meeting.'" He was 
"disowned." Deeming himself unjustly dealt by — alienated from 
religious and social ties — he resolved on emigration to the new 
world, the refuge of the persecuted of church and state. Tradi- 
tion awards to Andrew, the brief but comprehensive eulogy, " He 
was a man of high character in every respect — one indeed, of 
nature's noblemen.'' To Ann, the praise of being a " woman of 
great goodness — worthy of her husband."* The adventurers, with 
an infant son, landed in New York with what, in those times, was 
deemed a " considerable estate," purchased a tract of new land, 
and settled upon it. 

We here lose sight of the family and their history for a long 
period. Previous to 1760, however, they had become residents of 
Buck's county in Pennsylvania; and had four sons, the elder of 
whom, about that period, were starting out upon business enter- 
prizes. From some dates in the author's possession, he is disposed 
to conclude that the stay in New York was a short one, as it would 
appear that they were pioneers of Buck's county. The sons of 
these pioneer adventurers were, Nathaniel, Joseph, Andrew, and 
John. As early as 1770, they purchased a tract of wild land on 
the Patapsco, in Maryland, and erecting mills and machinery, be- 
came the founders of what was long known as " Ellicott's Mills," 
now, for the sake of brevity, termed " Ellicotts." 

Joseph was the father of the subject of this memoir. He was a 
man of large scientific attainments, and possessed uncommon genius 



* And a poetess withal, as the following relic witnesses. It was written on her 
departure from Wales; — 

" Through rocks and sands, 

And enemies' hands. 

And perils of the deep, 

Father and son 

From Cullopton, 

The Lord preserve and keep. — 1731." 



432 HISTORY OF THE 

in the mechanic arts.* His sons, other than Joseph, were Andrew, 
Benjamin, and David. 

Andrew the eldest son, became an eminent surveyor; surveyed 
the Spanish boundary line under the administration of Mr. Jeffer- 
son; was afterwards Surveyor General of the United States; and 
died the Professor of Mathematics at West Point, in 1820 or '1. 
While engaged in the survey of the Spanish boundary, he wrote a 
"Journal," which was published in a quarto form, and which alone 
would entitle its author to a high rank among the literary and 
scientific men of his period. It was an early and successful essay 
to make the people of the United States acquainted with the 
climate, soil, topography, and vast resources of the country 
acquired by the Louisiana treaty. He enjoyed the friendship and 
intimacy of Mr. Jefferson. His three sons, were Andrew A., 
John B. and Joseph, who all became residents of the Holland 
Purchase. Andrew A., the eldest, became a resident at Shelby, 
Orleans county, where he died, and where his descendants now 
reside. Joseph, a resident of Batavia, where he died in 1839, 
leaving a family, who are still residing there. John B., the only 
surviving son, is a resident at Ellicott's Mills, six miles west of 
Batavia. One of his daughters married the Hon. Henry Baldwin, 
Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States; another, Major 
Bliss of the army, and another. Major Douglass of the army; a 
third was the wife of Thomas Kennedy Esq., of Meadville, Pennsyl- 
vania; a fourth, of Dr. Nathaniel E. Griffith of New York; a 
fifth, was the wife of the late Dr. Woodruff, of Batavia. 

Benjamin Ellicott, as will have been seen, entered the service 
of the Holland Company at an early period, as the assistant of his 
brother Joseph. He was at an early period, one of the Judges of 
Genesee county, and a Representative in Congress, from the district. 
He was a bachelor; died a resident at Williamsville, Erie county, 
in 1827. 

The younger brother, David, a somewhat erratic genius, was in 

*A very decided evidence of his skill and ingenuity, is furnished in a clock of his 
construction, now in the possession of the Hon. David E. Evans, his grandson. The 
admirers of mechanical ingenuity — good judges — have pronounced it the climax of 
that branch of the mechanic arts. It has four faces, each looking towards the cardinal 
points of the compass. One face tells the time of day — another exhibits an orrery, 
and on it are displayed the motions of the heavenly bodies in perfect order; a third 
face exhibits a display of musical bells, formed to play twenty-four distinct tunes, one 
for each hour; the remaining face exposes to view the whole internal machinery of the 
instrument. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 433 

some of the earliest years, a surveyor upon the Purchase. He 
went south, and no tidings ever came of him. 

There were five sisters, three of whom married three brothers, 
by the name of Evans. In this circumstance, the reader will find 
the explanation of the numerous heirs of Joseph Ellicott, bearing 
that name. 

With Ellicott's Mills, Baltimore — Howard county, in fact, — 
the family of Ellicotts were as much identified, as with the Holland 
Purchase. In the local annals of that region, they figure as early 
millers, iron founders, builders of wharves, inventors, and the 
patrons of inventors. Years before the advent of Joseph and 
Benjamin to this region, their father and uncles had penetrated the 
then wild and rugged valley of the Patapsco, founded new 
settlements — triumphed over no ordinary obstacles. The name 
has been made synonymous, with enterprise and perseverance. 

Their business establishments in Maryland were but just fairly 
under way, when the war of the Revolution commenced. Though 
great sufferers in their business, from the effects of the war, and 
belonging to the peaceful society of Friends, they nevertheless, like 
Gens. Greene and Mifflin, deemed the resistance of the oppressed 
colonies justifiable, and warmly espoused the whig side. "In this 
respect, there was not throughout the whole family, a solitary 
exception. No tory blood ran in the veins of a single Ellicott." 

Joseph Ellicott was but fourteen years of age, when his father 
removed from Buck's county to Maryland. Up to that period, he 
had enjoyed no other facilities for an education, than the common 
schools of a new country afforded. His early lessons in surveying, 
were given him by his elder brother, Andrew. His first practical 
surveying, was as an assistant of his brother, in the survey of the 
city of Washington, soon after that site had been selected for the 
national capital. In 1791, he was appointed by Timothy Pickering, 
then Secretary of War, to run the boundary line between Georgia 
and the Creek Indians. After completing this survey, he was 
employed by Mr. Cazenove, to survey the Holland Company lands 
in Pennsylvania. 

This completed, he was engaged for a short time in Maryland, 
in business with his brothers, and then enlisted in the Holland Com- 
pany's service in this region. 

The active years of his life were those, principally, intervening 
between the years 1790 and 1821 — a period of about thirty years. 
•28 



HISTORY OF THE 

At least ten or twelve years were spent in the arduous duties of a 
surveyor; and when he left the woods and settled down in the dis- 
charge of the duties of a local agent, his place was no sinecure, as 
the records of the office will abundantly testify. He was a man 
of great industry; careful, systematic in all his business, and re- 
quired of all under his control a prompt and faithful discharge of 
their various duties. 

His education was strictly a practical one. He was a good 
mathematician, a scientific surveyor, a careful and able financier. 
The voluminous correspondence that he has left behind him, with 
the General Agency at Philadelphia, with the prominent men of this 
state of his period — in reference to the business of the company, 
political measures, works of internal improvement, and public policy 
generally — indicate a good degree of talents as a writer, and 
enlarged and statesman-like views. His memory is not only iden- 
tified, as we have observed, with the surveys and settlement of this 
region, but with the crowning achievement — that which consum- 
mated local prosperity — the origin and prosecution of the Erie 
canal; as will be shown in connection with that branch of our 
subject. In the day that the vast benefits of that work shall be 
fully realized and gratefully acknowledged; when an enduring 
tablet is erected to commemorate the services of all who were 
conspicuous in its projection and progress, his name will be 
recorded upon it. 

In person, Mr. Ellicott was rather above the middling size — six 
feet three inches in height. In youth he was of spare habits, but 
about the age of forty became corpulent. He had a strong con- 
stitution, capable of much endurance; and enjoyed for the greater 
portion of his life uninterrupted health. 

He was possessed of fine conversational powers; when in humour 
he was a great talker and a convincing reasoner; and had a 
remarkable faculty of influencing the opinions ol all with whom he 
associated. 

A life of great usefulness, of extraordinary enterprise; a career 
of personal success, and the success of the enterprises with which 
he was connected, was destined to a melancholy close. As early 
as 1816 or '17, he became subject to depression of spirits, melan- 
choly, which by degrees became a confirmed and inveterate hypo- 
condria. If we were to look for the causes of this infirmity, they 
would perhaps be found in the peculiar temperament and constitution 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 435 

of the man, and the circumstances under which he found himself as 
his years increased — youth and middle age were passed — and life 
was verging to the " sere and yellow leaf." Wise as he may have 
been in other respects — prudent and far seeing — he had yet 
strangely neglected himself; been improvident in that which could 
alone have promised him temporal happiness and contentment. 
Enterprise had been rewarded; wealth had come at his bidding, 
and filled his coffers. Broad acres, the sites of flourishing villages, 
the favorite grounds of an embryo city, were his. But he had no 
one to share all this with him. He was wifeless and childless. 
" Man must love something," is the truthful and beautiful philoso- 
phy of Kotzebue in his play — The Stranger. He must have some- 
thing to hope for and care for, or with him the " pitcher is broken 
at the fountain," and the " grasshopper has become a burden." 
Wealth, in view of one who is alone in this cold and cheerless 
world; who feels that he is approaching old age, and that no 
destiny is linked with his; that there is no one to inherit from him 
his name, and be the filial conservator of his memory — is assayed, 
and turns to dross. It has been accumulated but to palsy the 
mind, crush the hopes, and embitter the declining age of its pos- 
sessor. The very largesses he has to bestow, beget jealousy and 
distrust of even the well-intended offices of friendship. Does dis- 
ease and pain come upon him, the hand that is held out to alleviate 
may be a sinister one. Perhaps the real, or it may be, the morbid 
sense of ingratitude comes, blighting all the buds of hope and 
promise that disease and despondency have spared ! 

His agency ceased in October, 1821. It was by his own act, 
though not in the absence of a state of things that would have 
rendered a farther connection with the office irksome, if his health 
had not been unimpaired. Although laboring under the combined 
mental and physical infirmity that has been named, he had continued 
to discharge the duties of the office in the absence of any consider- 
able interruption. No mal-administration or neglect of duty was 
alleged against him. A feeling of discontent had begun to prevail 
— one that afterwards became rife upon the Purchase. Indebted- 
ness upon land contracts had increased to such magnitude, as to 
press heavily upon the settlers, and create fearful apprehensions of 
the ultimate result. A formidable portion of them had conceived 
that a change of the local agency would be attended with some 
relief, or favorable modification of the terms and condition of 



436 HISTORY OF THE 

indebtedness, and the General Agent was perhaps not unwilling to 
listen to the expediency of the measure, in hopes to appease the 
discontent and gratify the desire of change. Conscious of this 
state of things, Mr. Ellicott resigned the agency. It cannot justly 
be deduced from after events, that any anticipated benefits came 
from the change. The modification of the terms of indebtedness 
that was sometime afterwards made, was under the direction and 
instructions of the General Agent. 

The close of his agency was the end of the active and busy life 
of Mr. Ellicott that commenced with his youth, and continued 
without interruption up to that period. Our country above all others 
-^or in that degree which naturally arises from a prevailing spirit 
of enterprise — furnishes frequent examples of the effect upon strong 
minds and business habits, of an attempt to retire from active 
duties, and live at ease. The experiment is seldom one of favor- 
able issue. In the case we have under consideration it served to 
increase and confirm a malady. 

In November, 1824, under the advice of physicians, he was 
removed to the city of New York to get the benefit of a council 
of physicians to be called there. He was accompanied by Dr. John 
B. Cotes, his nephews, the Hon. David E. Evans, and Joseph 
Ellicott, 2d, Ebcnezer Mix, Esq. and Judge Nixson. A packet 
boat was chartered at Albion to convey the party to Albany. At 
this period — as it had been from the first — his aberrations of mind, 
were decidedly those of monomania; sane upon all other subjects, 
he was insane when, himself and his real and imaginary diseases 
were his themes. Passing down the canal, he would give his 
attendants minute and interesting details of its history, the part he 
had taken in it; and converse upon general topics, in the absence 
of all indications of impaired intellect. But changing the theme to 
himself, his mind would wander and conjure up fearful apprehen- 
sions of present and approaching disease, and their speedy and fatal 
termination.* 



*The author has in his possession, a half dozen sheets of paper, that Mr. Elhcott scrib- 
bled over, while in the Asylum. It is a strange medley; as perfect an indication per- 
haps as could bo given of his peculiar malady. In a few lines he would seem to be 
writing to a friend; then in direct connection occurs soliloquies, the subjects, the path- 
ology and prognosis of disease, and its remedies. Occasionally, his sentences are well 
connected, and his ideas well expressed; generally it is so, until he begins to talk of 
himself and his own infirmities; then he becomes wild and incoherent; dwells upon his 
afflictions, imagines that his digestive organs are all out of tune — his whole system 
ruined by disease and the Injudicious use of medicine. It may truly be said, in the 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 437 

Arrived in New York, a council of physicians was called, con- 
sisting of Drs. Post, Nelson, and Cheetham. The favorite projects 
of his friends, were, a journey to Pennsylvania and Maryland — a 
visit to his kindred and the scenes of his youth — or a sea yoyage. 
The council decided upon his entering the Hospital at Bellevue; a 
decision which was perhaps somewhat influenced by the fact, that 
tlie institution was under the superintendence of his old friend and 
associate upon the board of Canal Commissioners, Thomas Eddy 
A residence with him seemed not against his inclinations. He had 
a carriage provided for him, and rode out occasionally, as a part of 
the sanative discipline recommended. 

The anticipated benefits of the Asylum were not realized; 
neither its curative measures, or the change of residence — the 
abstraction from the cares and annoyances of his business, — could 

"cure a mind diseased." 

Mental and physical infirmity increased upon him, until July or 
August of 1826, when, escaping the vigilance of his attendant, he* 
consummated that which had long been apprehended by those who 
had known most of the despondency and depression of spirits that 
had conquered the once strong man, and expelled reason from its 
throne. 

Thus died the Patroon and founder of settlement, upon the 
Holland Purchase. 

A few months after his death, his remains were brought to Bata- 
via, and deposited in the village cemetery. 

Although Mr. Ellicott, in all the active years of his life, took a 
deep interest in public affairs, his time was too much occupied to 
allow, generally, of the acceptance of office. He was, however, in 
1804, one of the Presidential Electors of this state, and a Canal 
Commissioner, as has been stated. On the primitive organization 
of Genesee county, he was appointed First Judge, but declined, 
and Ezra Piatt was appointed in his place. 

A brief statement of the terms of his engagement with the 
Holland Company, will account, principally, for the large estate 
which he left. For his first ten years' service, it was stipulated 
that he should have five per cent, upon all sales; six thousand acres 
of farming lands, and five hundred acres of land in the village of 

language of tlie physician of the Asylum, that his was a case of " inveterate hypocon- 
dria, acting upon a very extraordinary mind." 



438 HISTORY OF THE 

Batavia. At the close of the ten years, the General Agent 
proposed that he should receive, instead of a cash commission of 
five per cent., one twentieth of all the contracts he had made. 
This arrangement was acceded to, and the land embraced in one 
twentieth of all the contracts was deeded to him in fee, and the 
contracts assigned. This was in 1810. The reversion of land 
embraced in these assigned contracts, explains his ownership of 
detached farm lots, scattered over that portion of the Purchase first 
settled; principally in Genesee, Niagara and Erie. 

The occupants of these reverted lands, were thus legally made 
subject to his discretion. The records of the land office, however, 
bear witness, that he made no discrimination; that the occupants of 
his lands, were in all cases, as liberally dealt by, as were the 
occupants under the expired contracts of the Company. There is 
probably no one of the settlers upon the lands thus situated, or their 
descendants, who can justly complain of other than fair treatment 
at his hands. He commenced a renewal of the contracts, and 
continued to renew them, as long as he had the management of his 
own affairs. A large number of the contracts, unfulfilled and 
expired, existed at the period of his death, and became the property 
of his devisees. Honorable testimony would generally be borne to 
their liberality; with some few exceptions, in the case of those who 
did not regard the example set by their liberal benefactor. This 
variation between the spirit and policy of a donor and inheritor, is 
not unusual. 

The six thousand acres, stipulated in his contract with the 
Company, was located in what was long known as the ''Eleven 
Mile Woods," on the Ridge Road, near Lockport, Niagara county. 
He afterwards added by purchase, a strip of twelve hundred acres 
on the south side of this. The tract was principally unsold at the 
period of his death. The tract between Lockport and Ridge Road 
— about two thousand five hundred acres — which has been usually 
considered a part of the "Ellicott Reserve," was a separate 
purchase, made jointly by Joseph and Benjamin Ellicott. Joseph 
Ellicott also purchased a tract on either side of the Tonawanda, at 
the old "Fishing Ground," or "Rapids," with the intention, at one 
time, of securing the erection of mills there, by raising a dam, and 
constructing a race across the land below. 

He purchased seven hundred acres upon the Oak Orchard, 
embracing the water power, and site of the now village of Shelby; 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 439 

and afterwards the fourteen hundred acres below, which embraces 
the village of Medina. Joseph and Benjamin also purchased 
jointly, some detached tracts in Somerset, Niagara county. 

In the original survey of Buffalo, he had plotted for himself one 
hundred acres, which he afterwards purchased of the company. 
It was called an out lot. The reader will regard it now an in lot, 
when told how conspicuous a position it occupies in the now widely 
extended city. Its front is all the ground opposite the Churches, 
between Swan and Eagle streets. In the centre of its front, there 
was originally a curve — a semi-circle — projecting beyond the line 
of the street. Tradition affirms that Mr. EUicott intended that 
ultimately as the site of his residence. It would have commanded 
an uninterrupted view of Main Street, in each direction, and 
through Erie, Church, and Niagara Streets — called by Mr. Ellicott 
in his original map of "New Amsterdam," Stadtnitski, VoUenhoven 
and Schimmelpenninck Avenues. He thus early identified his 
interests with that of Buffalo, and through his hfe entertained high 
anticipations (though they came far short of what has since been 
realized,) of its destinies. His careful guardianship of the local- 
ity commenced with his agency. The difficulty obviated — his 
negociations with William Johnston and the Indians having termi- 
nated in securing the "mouth of Buffalo creek" as a part of the 
Holland Purchase — he congratulated Mr. Cazenove upon the great 
acquisition. In a letter dated June 25, 1798, he says: — 

"The building spot is situated about sixty perches from the lake, 
on a beautiful, elevated bank, about twenty-five feet perpendicular 
height above the surface of the water in the lake; from the foot of 
which, with hut little labor, may he made the most beautiful meadows. 
extending to the lake, and up Buffalo creek to the Indian line. 
From the top of the bank, there are few more beautiful prospects. 
Here the eye wanders over the inland sea to the south west, until 
the sight is lost in the horizon. On the north west is seen the pro- 
gressing settlements in Upper Canada; and south westerly, with 
pruning some trees out of the way, may be seen the Company's 
lands, for the distance of forty miles; gradually ascending, varie- 
gated with valleys and gently rising hills, until the sight passes 
their summit at the source of the waters of the Mississippi." 

It will be new to those even most conversant with the history of 
the Holland Purchase, the fact that Black Rock was looked upon 
as a rival to Buffalo as early as 1802. Extract of a letter bearing 
date in May of that year, from Mr. Ellicott to Mr. Busti: — 



440 HISTORY OF THE 

'• While speaking on the subject of taking things in the proper 
time, I cannot refrain from mentioning that the Company delaying 
the opening of their lands for sale in New Amsterdam, and the 
lands adjoining thereto I fear the nick of time will pass by, at least 
for making a town of New Amsterdam. The state, last session 
of the Legislature, passed a law for purchasing the natives' rights 
of land, the pre-emptive right of which was in the state, (on our 
map called the New York Reservation.) The southern part of 
which lands reach near to New Amsterdam, and there is a situation 
on said lands, intended to be purchased equally or more advanta- 
geous for a town than New Amsterdam, so that if the state shall 
make the intended purchase this summer and offer this spot for sale 
before New Amsterdam gets in operation, the nick of time will be 
lost to the future .prosperity of that place. It would therefore 
evidently tend more to the advantage of the Dutch proprietors to 
give to the Agent General of their concerns in this country full and 
discretionary powers to act and transact their business as existing 
circumstances might evince to be most conducive to the interests 
of the Proprietors." 

It only remains to speak of the final disposition of the large 
estate that had accumulated principally from the ownerships and 
investments that have been noted. His will was executed in the 
year 1824. At the period of his death, in 1826, his estate was 
estimated at about six hundred thousand dollars; though it was 
difficult then to make any correct estimate of its value; the prices 
of farming lands were low, and Buffalo village property had not 
then hardly begun the rapid advance in value that has since been 
realized. The entire landed estate of which he died seized, would 
now be estimated by millions, instead of hundreds of thousands. 

Over one half of his estate was disposed of by special devises 
and bequests. These were to his favorite relatives; those mostly 
with whom he had been closely associated in the latter years of his 
life. The residuary portion of his estate, was devised to his 
brothers' and sisters' children, and their children who might be liv- 
ing at his decease; to be divided equally between thein, except, 
that such of his brothers' and sisters' children as should be childless 
at the time of his decease, should receive a double share. There 
were eighty seven of these residuary legatees, seven of whom drew 
double shares, making ninety four shares. 

Three commissioners, appointed by the Supreme Court, after an 
examination of all lands thus bequeathed, fixed a value upon them 
amountinc; in the affgrcirate to ninetv-four times fourteen hundred 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 441 

and fifty dollars. This estimate was merely nominal, to fix a basis 
of division. There was beside this, a large amount of personal 
property, not included in his special devises and bequests, which 
remained to the residuary legatees. His interest in various tracts 
of land in common with his brother Benjamin, was devised to his 
three sisters. 

The residuary legatees drew their portions by lots; some, of 
course, were more fortunate than others, as after value proved. 
While some portions drawn, have remained nearly stationary in 
value, others have doubled, trebled, quadrupled ; and increased even 
ten fold. 

In addition to the purchases of Mr. Ellicott, which have been 
enumerated, he and his brother Benjamin purchased the peninsula 
between Buffalo creek and the lake shore, in the city of Buffalo. 



JACOB S. OTTO. 



This gentleman was the successor of Mr. Ellicott in the local 
agency. He was previously a resident of Philadelphia; had been 
engaged in mercantile and commercial pursuits. 

The period of his agency was from 1821 to his death, in 182G. 
Although possessed of many amiable qualities, his previous pursuits 
and business experience were not well adapted to fit him for the 
new and peculiar duties of the place he was called to fill; though 
the period of his incumbency was one of active and extensive 
sales, and his efix>rts were not wanting to perpetuate the liberal 
policy that had so generally characterized the ownership and 
agencies of the "Purchase. The measures adopted during his 
agency were such as tended to promote the interests and prosperity 
of the Holland Purchase. 

At the great canal celebration, in Lockport, on the 2Gth of 
October, 1825, he was one of the delegation from the county of 
Genesee. From some exposure upon that occasion, he contracted 
a cold, which terminated in his death. May 2d, 1826. 

It was during Mr. Otto's administration, that the plan of receiving 
cattle and grain from the settlers, that had previously been 
entertained, was effectually commenced. Depots were designated 
in different parts of the Purchase, for the delivery of wheat; where 
the settler could carry it, and have its value endorsed upon his 



442 HISTORY OF THE 

contract. Agents were appointed to receive cattle. They adver- 
tised yearly, the times and places, when and where the cattle 
would be received, fixed upon their price, and endorsed it upon 
contracts. It was one among the measures of relief, and its 
operation was highly beneficial. The agencies were, however, 
expensive to the company, and alloAving the market price for the 
grain and cattle, they were largely the losers by the operations. 



DAVID E. EVANS. 



During the administration of Mr. Otto, Mr. Evans had been 
appointed as his associate, to give the incumbent the advantage of 
his long experience and familiarity with the details of the business. 
Yet he did not, to any considerable degree, participate in the joint 
administration proposed; his time being chiefly occupied with his 
own private affairs, and the duties of a member of the Senate of 
this state. 

Upon the death of Mr. Otto, he entered upon the discharge of 
the duties of the local agency. Early in life, he had been a clerk 
in the office, under his uncle, Joseph Ellicott, and had for a long 
period occupied the desk of the cashier and accountant of the 
agency. Few, therefore, could have been more familiar with the 
wants, interests and welfare of the settlers. They were old familiar 
acquaintances, and his interests were identified with theirs. 

It was during the second year of Mr. Evans' administration, (in 
Sept. 1827,) that a general plan for the modification of land con- 
tracts was adopted. It was regarded at the time, as a very decided 
measure of relief to the settlers, and its operations were highly 
beneficial to a very large class of the debtors of the Holland Com- 
pany. The plan of modification was mainly as follows: — 

" Any person or persons holding a contract for land, or holding 
land, which is under a mortgage, whether the contract has expired 
or not, and whether the whole of the money has become due on 
the mortgage, or not; where the principal and interest already paid 
and to be paid, amounts to more per acre than the maximum prices 
subjoined, may surrender the said contract, and enter into a new- 
contract for the same, according to the following principles, and if 
under a mortgage, the money shall be reduced in conformity to the 
same. 

" Where partial payments have been made, ascertain how many 
acres those payments (an original advance of five per cent, ex- 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 443 

cepted) would have paid for at the original contract price, (deduct- 
ing five per cent.,) had that quantity been in a separate contract; 
estimate what the residue of the land would amount to at the max- 
imum price, and charge the same on the whole of the land in the 
original article, or under the original mortgage; at which time all 
reasonable divisions will be made where several individuals claim 
parts of the original article; and in case of a mortgage, reasonable 
divisions will be made, and accounts opened for each proprietor or 
claimant of such divisions, and those several parts released when 
paid for. Provided, however, that such claimant of the whole, or 
any part of the land held under an old contract, or covered by a 
mortgage, shall pay at least one-eighth part of the new price so 
found, at the time such deductions shall be made, and such divisions 
take place, and covenant or agree to pay the residue in six equal 
annual payments with interest annually. The maximum price is 
not to be enhanced by adding interest until January 1st, 1828. 

Previous to the year 1828, much difficulty and embarrassment 
had occurred throughout the Holland Purchase, from a provision in 
the School Act of the state, that sites of school houses should be 
secured by deeds in fee, or by leases from the possessor of the fee, 
of the land. In numerous instances there was no deeded lands in 
the district; or if there was, not conveniently located. In the 
absence of such title or lease, the trustees of the districts could not 
legally levy and collect taxes for building or repairing school 
houses. About the period above named, Mr. Evans adopted the 
following plan to remedy the evil, and prevent the hindrances that 
were in the way of a full realization of the benefits of the common 
school system upon the Holland Purchase. It was entered upon 
the books of the office, and the benefits of it extended whenever 
asked: — 

•* In every legally organized School District on the Holland Pur- 
chase, where the most convenient site for a school house shall fall 
on land not deeded from the Holland Company, a deed for such 
site, not exceeding half an acre of land, shall be granted, from the 
Company to such district, gratis. Provided that whenever such 
site shall fall on lands held under contract, from the Company, by 
any person or persons, such district shall procure a relinquishment 
of the right to such piece of land, by virtue of said contract to be 
endorsed thereon by the person or persons holding the same." 

Mr. Evans' agency continued until 1837. It embraced the large 
sales of the Holland Company's interest; in fact before it closed, 
the entire business and interests of the Company, had progressed 
nearlv to a termination. 



444 HISTORY OF THE 

Having served one term as a State Senator, Mr. Evans had been 
elected a Representative in Congress at the period of Mr. Otto's 
death. He resigned to take upon himself the duties of the agency. 

He became the purchaser of the fine residence of Mr. ElUcott, 
from the three sisters and the brother's wife, to w^hom Mr. E. had 
willed it. Extending and carrying out the plans of his uncle, he 
has made it one of the most beautiful and tasteful residences in the 
state; and a seat of hospitality, as will readily be inferred, by those 
who know the generous and social character of its owner. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 445 



CHAPTER III. 



C0M3IENCEMENT OF SETTLE3IENT, AND ITS PROGRESS UP TO THE 

WAR OF 1812. 



The chain of narrative in a preceding chapter was interrupted 
by the introduction of a chapter of personal biographies, just as 
Mr. Ellicott had so far progressed with the surveys as to admit of 
the announcement of the commencement of land sales. There 
were then but three settlers under the auspices of the Holland 
Company; the three pioneer tavern keepers. Settlement and its 
progress will now be taken up, and continued with reference to the 
order of time in which it occurred, and its localities. An attempt 
will be made to show the reader when and where the bold and 
enterprising Pioneers dashed into the wilderness in different direc- 
tions — erected their humble primitive log cabins, and laid here and 
there, over a wide region, the foundations of the wealth, prosperity 
and happiness, which he may now witness. He will find that the 
commencement, and the progress for a long period, was surrounded 
with formidable difficulties; that they ifivolved privation, suffering, 
and indomitable perseverance; and in the end will feel to venerate 
the names of the living, and the memories of the dead, of those 
who reclaimed the wilderness, and prepared the way for its con- 
version to the fairest portion of our Empire State. 
. As soon as Mr. Ransom had built his house at Pine Grove, Mr. 
Ellicott had made it his head quarters, as has been indicated by the 
dates of his letters. His appointment as Local Agent, took effect 
October 1st, 1800, at which time he commenced sales of land — a 
portion of Mr. Ransom's house being appropriated for his office, 
and Mr. James W. Stevens, whom he had brought on from Phila- 
delphia for that purpose, acted as his clerk; Mr. Brisbane occasion- 



HISTORY OF THE 

ally acting in that capacity, though his duties were mostly at the 
Transit Store House. 

Before introducing the names of the settlers, we will insert some 
desultory sketches, which have a bearing upon this primitive period 
of settlement: — 

Extract of a letter of Joseph Ellicott to Paul Busti, Esq., of 
Philadephia, dated New Amsterdam, January 16th, 1801: — 

" I have the satisfaction to inform you (although after a disagree- 
able journey) that I arrived here in good health the 1st instant, since 
which period I have been bi^sily employed in making arrangements 
for the sale of the land placed under my charge. The season of 
the year being such as to prevent persons from making their estab- 
lishments, prevents me at present from effecting any honajida sales. 

Settlers generally wishing to defer entering into articles before 
they are enabled to commence their improvements. I have, how- 
ever, abundant reason to conclude, that at the opening of Spring 
I shall effect the sale of considerable land." 

In a letter to Messrs. Le Roy & Bayard, dated '' West Gene- 
see" May 7th, 1801, Mr Ellicott says:— 

"In respect to sales, of lands, we have not as yet made rapid 
progress. The best and most eligible situations are only in 
demand. However, we dispose of more or less almost every day. 
Settlements form more rapidly on the east side of the Purchase 
than the west, owing to its contiguity to the old settlement in the 
Genesee, where provisions and necessaries for their beginning is 
more easily attainable. However, there are some going on on the 
western side, and I continue to live under the expectation of selling 
a considerable quantity of lands in the course of the summer and 
fall, and presume after this season the sales will increase, the ice 
will then be broken, and conveniences will be had for the settlers 
on the Purchase." 

In May, 1801, Mr. Ellicott acting as the special agent of Messrs. 
Le Roy and Bayard, employed Mr. Richard M. Stoddard to sur- 
vey the Triangular tract, giving minute directions, especially as to 
the laying off of five hundred acres at " Buttermilk Falls." 

In a letter to Mr. Munger, at Transit Store House, dated at 
"Pine Grove," (Ransom's,) May, 1801, he says, he has been 
informed " that the inhabitants of your neighborhood have under- 
taken to open the road to Ganson's. You will please consider me 
a subscriber towards the expense of the undertaking." 

In May of this year, Gen. James Wilkenson came u])on the 
western frontiers of this State, commissioned to open a communi- 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 447 

cation by land between lake Erie and Ontario. Making Black 
Rock his head quarters, with his surveyors and a corps of U. S. 
soldiers for laborers, soon after his arrival, he addressed Mr. Elli- 
cott for advice in reference to the best route to pursue. The 
answer pointed out with but little variation the route that was 
adopted. Mr. Ellicott forwarded to Gen. Wilkenson such maps 
and field notes as would facilitate the enterprise; in acknowledging 
the reception of which, the General expresses his apprehensions 
that "evil disposed persons will labor to excite clamor and discon- 
tent among the Indians on this occasion;" but he trusts Mr. Ellicott 
and Gen. Chapin "will prevent any obstruction from that quarter." 

Gen. Wilkenson and his corps, located the road. He directed 
Major Porter, then in command at Fort Niagara, to open it with 
the soldiers of the "garrison. In the season of 1802 it was opened 
as far west as the brow of the mountain at Lewiston; and from 
thence to a mile west of Tonawanda creek, the timber was cut 
down but not removed. The work of the season included the 
erection of bridges over the Tonawanda and Cayuga creeks. The 
road was left'in this condition until 1809, when an appropriation 
was made by the legislature of this State for its farther improve- 
ment, of fifteen hundred dollars; the sum to be collected from the 
debtors to the State for lands purchased upon the '• Mile Strip." 
Joseph Landon, Peter Vandeventer, and Augustus Porter were 
appointed commissioners to lay out the money. It was used to 
make a passable wagon road from Black Rock to the Falls. This 
was the end of government appropriation. 

While Gen. Wilkenson was upon the frontier he located the site 
of a Fort at Black Rock. At the session of the legislature that 
followed, the general government made application for a cession of 
land to carry out the project. The cession was refused, unless the 
general government would pay for the land. The condition was 
declined, and the project abandoned. This narrow, and strange 
legislative policy induced the general government to abandon the 
prosecution of the military road; and to it, is also to be attributed 
the defenseless condition of the frontier on the breaking out of the 
war of 1812. 

In a letter dated July 14th, Mr. Ellicott informs Mr. Busti gen- 
erally as to land sales, their amount, and location. In closing the 
letter he makes the following suggestions : — 

'* When we reflect that there are lands for sale in every possible 



448 HISTORY OF THE 

direction around us, that every purchaser who cornes into this 
quarter has to pass by almost innumerable land offices, where lands 
are offered on almost every kind of terms imaginable; and that in 
Upper Canada, adjoining this Purchase the government grants lands 
at 6d Halifax currency per acre; we cannot calculate to make very 
rapid sales, until we have saM' and grist mills erected, and roads 
opened; all of which are going forward. 

"If some modes could be devised to grant lands to actual settlers, 
who cannot pay in advance, and at the same time not destroy that 
part of the plan which required some advance, I am convinced the 
most salutary consequences would be the result, which I beg leave 
to suggest for Mr. Busti's consideration, as three-fourths of the 
applicants are of that description; and as every acre of land that 
is cleared, fenced, and sowed on the Purchase, at the labor and 
expense of others, makes the district at least $25 more valuable, it 
appears to me some mode might be devised, to grant to such actual 
settlers lands, without restricting them to pay in advance. JNIonied 
men are loath to settle before conveniences can be had, and deprive 
tliemselves of the benefits of society, which accounts for the reason 
why our sales have not been more extensive to that class of pur- 
chasers." 

Mr. Thompson, who had charge of the building of the house for 
Mr. Ellicott's office and residence at Batavia, expressed to him in 
a letter his disapprobation of "log houses," and considers the 
money expended upon them " thrown away." Mr. Ellicott in his 
answer thus quiets his scruples upon that point: — "you will please 
consider the expense solely chargeable to me, and I hope I may 
never want for a worse house than a good log house. Indeed I 
should prefer living in such a house, to that of being obliged to 
board in the best brick house in Canandaigua." 

Extract of a letter from Mr. Ellicott to Mr. Busti, dated July 
21st, 1821: 

" You will permit me to mention to you the propriety of opening 
a township or two for sale on the lake Ontario shore, as no doubt 
people will be moving into this purchase by water, and unless we 
have some establishment on the Lake, and a road effected from the 
district to said establishment, such persons will be put to consider- 
able inconvenience. I would therefore propose, as there is a good 
harbor for boats in township No. 16, 2d Range that the said town- 
ships should be opened for sale. Indeed an establishment on the 
Lake cannot, in my opinion, be begun at too early a period, as 
the farmers in the Purchase will require a place to convey their 
potash to deposit on the Lake, in order to be sent to Montreal or 
New York, as may be most likely to produce a market, and also 
for a place to receive their salt, and without such an establishment 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 449 

many will have to go considerably farther, as well as carry their 
money into other settlements in which we are not interested. 

"Another object of no small moment to our prosperity, would be 
the setting apart for sale township No. 1 1, in the 8th Range, including 
New Amsterdam, which would shortly become the place for the 
inhabitants of the western tract to receive their supplies, and in a 
little time would be a place of trade, which would give a spring to 
the settlement, and of course could not be too soon commenced 
for the benefit of the interior part opened for sale. All which is 
respectfully submitted, dear sir, with great respect and esteem." 

Among the primitive tavern keepers, there was a backwoods 
philosopher. It was the Mr. Walthers, that had been sent from 
Philadelphia to be the landlord at the Transit Store House. 
Established in his location, he made himself quite officious; his 
letters came thick and fast upon Mr. Ellicott, whenever he knew 
where they would reach him. They were an odd mixture of 
philosophy, and advice and suggestions in reference to the best 
manner of settling a new country. In one letter he would talk of 
his domestic troubles ; in another, would announce that one, or two, or 
three landlookers had been his guests, not forgetting to assure Mr. 
Ellicott how hard he had labored to convince them of the splendid 
prospects of the new country; in another he would inform him of 
false reports that had been started as to the title of the land, and 
how he had put a quietus upon thein; in another he would express 
his regrets that his house was full of strangers, who were passing 
the Purchase, and^oing to "swell the numbers of his Brittanic 
Majesty's subjects in Upper Canada.-' In Mr. Ellicott's absence, 
he was wont to consider himself a sub-agent; taking some airs upon 
himself, from some favors that had been shown him by the General 
Agent at Philadelphia. He did not last long, as will be observed in 
an ex-tract of a letter from Mr. Ellicott to Mr. Busti. Mr. 
Ellicott answers a letter received from "Mrs. Berry and Miss 
Wemple" — (names familiar to old settlers, as household words.) 
They were applicants for two town lots, at the "Bend of the 
Tonewanta." He very courteously informs them, that when he 
lays out a town there, the lots will contain forty acres each, and 
their application shall be held in remembrance. 

One of the earliest attempts at gardening in Buffalo, is indicated 
in a letter from Henry Chapin to Mr. Ellicott, dated March, 1801. 
He asks the privilege of fencing in the ground on Seneca street. 

29 



«tSO HISTORY OF THE 

from Main to Washington street, opposite the Post office, for the 
purpose of raising some ''garden vegetables." 

Extract of a letter from Mr. Ellicott to Gen. Payne: — 

"Mr. Ellicott makes a tender of his compliments by Gen'l. 
Payne to Mr. Kirtland, informs that gentleman, that as yet, the 
Holland Land Com})any have made no provision for opening the 
road through their lands from Buffalo creek to the eastern boundary 
of the Triangle. 

"Mr. Ellicott has recently mentioned that subject to the General 
Agent, and is waiting his answei\ He thinks it probable the 
Company may unite M^ith the Connecticut Land Company, but this 
he cannot speak of with certainty." 

About this period, a lost horse gave Mr. Ellicott much trouble. 
He had borrowed the horse at Schlosser, to ride down to Niagara, 
and from thence to " Howell's," where he strayed away. The 
owner, presuming he had a good customer, demanded an exorbitant 
price. In a letter, he orders his friend Robert Lee, Esq., at the 
garrison to advertise the horse in " Tiffany's paper at Niagara." 
The horse is not much flattered in the advertisement; is not made 
to come up to the hundred dollars that the owner demanded; he is 
neither "shod before nor behind, and is tender footed;" (for which 
neither the horse nor the owner was probably to blame, for there 
were as yet no blacksmiths in the country.) After paying for the 
horse, it was found that the Tonawanda Indians had appropriated 
him to their use. 

Extract of a letter from Mr. Ellicott to Mr. Busti, dated Batavia, 
7th November, 1801:— 

" Having as yet not removed my office from Mr. Ransom's I am 
unable to detail particulars of the Agency. It is with regret that I 
inform you that we lost, three weeks since, another of our most 
valuable settlers, who fell a victim to the prevailing fever: — Mr. 
Garrett Davis, whose name you will see on the map of the west 
bounds of the Tonawanda Reservation, the place of his residence. 
He has left a wife and two children who will long feel his loss. 
Since the cold weather has set in the settlers are regaining their 
health, and I hope another season will be sufficiently healthy to 
enable me to report more favorably of the salubrity of this part of 
the Purchase." 

Extract of another letter from the same to the same, dated Pine 
Grove, Dec. 4th, 1801:— 

"I have made no actual sales this fall where the stipulated 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 451 

advance has been paid. I begin to be strongly of tiie opinion you 
always expressed to me, (but which, I must confess I rather 
doubted) that few purchasers will come forward and pay cash for 
lands in a new country. 

The saw mill I have been erecting at Batavia, which has cost a 
deal of labor, not being a natural seat, but a place where a conveni- 
ence of this kind is absolutely necessary, will, the mill-wright informs 
me, be in motion by the 10th instant, at which period we expect 
to begin to make ourselves and the settlers comfortable with 
floors, &c. which will be a great acquisition to our present situation.*' 

Then follows a long correspondence, or a long series of letters 
from Mr. Ellicott to Mr. Busti, proposing some general principles 
of land sales and settlements; and in reference to taxes, the asses- 
sors of Ontario county, having as he thought begun taxation of the 
Holland Company lands pretty promptly. In a letter dated at 
"Ransom's Grove," Feb. 14th, he informs Mr. Busti that many 
settlers are preparing to commence their establishments as soon as 
the spring opens. He says: — " My present situation, (although the 
accommodations are as good as could be expected,) is gloomy for 
the want of society; our nearest neighbors being eighteen miles 
distant." In the same letter he announces that "Mr. Walthers had 
sold his possessions and fled the country. It is said, has gone down 
the Mississippi to the Spanish Settlements." 

About this period a venerable relative of Mr. Ellicott in Mary- 
land, expresses his concern for him in his wilderness home, as 
foflows: — 

" I observe thou says thou art living without society, that thy 
nearest neighbor is ten miles. Pray can a person be justifiable in 
spending the few years he has to live in a way that is not the most 
agreeable to him? Think on this and retire from that toilsome life 
thou hast pursued so many years, and enjoy thy few remaining 
years to the fullest extent." 

In a letter from Mr. Ellicott to his brother Benjamin, dated in 
March, 1801, and directed to him at Davis' Hotel, he mentions 
that White Seneca is looking out a place for the Buffalo road south 
of the Reservation; and approves of his brother's selection of the 
site for the offices "at the Bend," and his general plan of the town 
plat he is surveying there. 

In a letter to Mr. Busti, dated at "Ransom^ West Genesee," 
August, 1801, Mr. Ellicott states that his quarters had been vis- 
ited bv the Hon. Jonathan Mason, U. S. Senator from Massachu- 



452 HISTORY OF THE 

setts, on his way to the Falls, In the same letter he complains that 
the inhabitants of the town of Northampton off from the Purchase 
are disposed to tax the company exorbitantly, for roads, bridges, &c. 
laying out the money beyond the bounds of the Purchase. The 
evil he thinks will be remedied when that part of the town which 
embraces the Purchase gets enough inhabitants to insure a fair 
division of the town offices; and ultimately, when a separate town 
can be organized. To hasten these events, he states that he is 
encouraging settlement, by waiving the requirement of advance pay- 
ments for land, when he can secure a settler. He complains that 
the county of Ontario have built "an elegant and commodious 
brick jail, such an one that few of the old counties of Pennsylvania 
can boast;" with the intention of making the Holland Company, 
foot a large portion of the expense. In this letter he informs Mr. 
Busti that many of the settlers are "greviously afflicted with the 
fever and ague." 

In a letter to Mr. Busti, dated May 30th, Mr. Ellicott describes 
the selection he had made at the " Bend of the Tonewanta" for his 
head quarters; the reasons generally for the location; the principal 
one being the intersection of roads at that point. He informs him 
that one lot was sold, and one house built, in his new town, that he 
had concluded to call the place "■ Bustia," or " Bustiville."*" He 
also informs him that land sales were going on encouragingly; that 
in one place, along the " Great Road," in the space of ten miles, 
there are " thirteen new improvements," and he confidently expects 
that before the close of winter, '^ more than half of the road will 
be settled." He congratulated Mr. Busti", upon the in-coming of 
the new administration, (Mr. Jefferson's,) and construes the ad- 
vent of Gen. Wilkenson as an earnest that some attention would 
be paid to this frontier. 

Dr. Cyrenus Chapin first visited the Purchase in the fall of 1801. 
In November of that year, he addressed a letter to Mr. Ellicott 
dated at Sangerfield, Oneida county. He wishes to take a lot in 
New Amsterdam, about which he had held some conversation with 
Mr. Ellicott; and this matter disposed of, he is ambitious to con- 

* The honor was promptly declined. Mr. Busti objected to it from an indisposition 
to be made thus conspicuous in the new country; and besides the name was not enpho- 
nious; it conveyed to the mind something " ferocious." Mr. Ellicott promptly aban- 
doned the name, but he very courteously informs Mr. Busti, that he thinks it no more 
" ferocious" than "Oldenbarneveldt." The name, Bata via, was substituted; it was 
of the Republic to which the Dutch proprietors belonged. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 453 

tract for what would now be considered a pretty large estate. 
His proposition, if it had been acceded to, would have made him 
and his friends the patroons of the city of the lakes : — 

" And further I would petition you for a township of land there 
at the Buffalo — the one that will take in the town, for since my 
return a number of my friends have solicited me to petition you 
for a township, and for that purpose forty respectable citizens that 
are men of good property, have signed articles of agreement to 
take a township, if it can be purchased; and we will pay the ten 
per cent, when we receive the article." 

The proposition was as a matter of courtesy forwarded to the 
general agent. In a few weeks Mr. EUicott informed Dr. Chapin 
that the answer did not favor his application. 

The commissioning of the first Justices of the Peace upon the 
Holland Purchase, is announced in a letter from Dewitt Clinton, 
(then private secretary to his uncle, Gov. George Clinton.) to Mr. 
EUicott, dated, Dec. 1801:— 

"Asa Ransom and WiUiam Rumsey were this day appointed 
Justices of the Peace for Ontario county, on your recommendation. 
Sickness prevented my attendance in October, which was the 
reason of the delay of the appointment. Their commission will, 
according to the regular routine, be transmitted to the Clerk of 
the county." 

June 19th, 1801. Mr. EUicott being absent from "Pine Grove," 
Mr. Ransom writes to him as follows: — 

"We are happy to inform you that Mrs. Ransom has become 
the mother of a fine boy, and is in comfortable circumstances. 
We shall be ready to wait on you whenever you think proper to 
return." 

The " fine boy," is now Col. Harry B. Ransom, of Clarence. 
He is the first born upon the Holland Purchase.* 

Asa and Elias Ransom, were from Birkshire, Massachusetts. 
The early resident at Pine Grove, was a silver smith; his first 
location was at Geneva, engaged in the manufacture of trinkets for 
the Indians. From thence he removed to Buffalo and engaged in 
the same business, and from thence to Pine Grove. He died in 

* A sister, Mrs. Merrill, (wife of Frederick B. Merrill, Esq. of Cheektowaga,) was 
born in Buffalo, previous to the removal of the family to Pine Grove. Her birth was 
before the settlement of Holland Purchase commenced. She was undoubtedly the 
first white child born in all this region, outside the walls of Fort Niagara. 



454 HISTORY OF THE 

1837, aged seventy years. His brother Elias, whose early advent 
is noticed, in connection with some reminiscences of Gen. Hopkins; 
and who as it will be seen, was an early settler at Buffalo, died 
seven or eight years since, aged nearly 80 years. He was the 
father of Elias Ransom, Esq, of Lockport; of Mrs. Street, of 
Chippewa, and Mrs. Kirby, of Waterloo. 

The following letter from the early tavern-keeper at Buffalo, to 
Mr. Ellicott, indicates the first movement ever made there in 
reference to a school. The request was granted: — 

" Buffalo, 11th Aug'st. 1801. 

Sir, — The inhabitants of this place, would take it as a particular favor if you would 
grant them the liberty of raising a school house on a lot in any part of the town, as the 
New York Missionary society have been so good as to furnish them with a school 
master, clear of any expense, excepting boarding and finding him a school house; if 
you will be so good as to grant them that favor which they will take as a particular 
mark of esteem. By the request of the inhabitants. 

I am yours, &c. 
Jo. Ellicott, Esq. JAS. R. PALMER. 

N. B. — Your answer to this, would be verj' acceptable, as they have the timber ready 
to hew out." 

The following list embraces the names of all the settlers upon 
the Holland Purchase from the commencement of land sales, up to 
Jan. 1st, 1807. They are in the order in which the contracts were 
taken in each year; their locations designated by Townships and 
Ranges. The reader who is curious to see in what directions set- 
tlement progressed after the commencement of it along the Buffalo 
road, will only have to become familiar with the plan of survey of 
the Holland Purchase — the location of Townships and Ranges, 
with reference to the present territories of towns and counties: — 





1801. 






Batavia Village. 


T. 12, R. 1. 


T. 12, R. 


1. 


Abel Rowe, 


William Blackman, 


Jesee Rumsey, 




Stephen Russell, 


Hiram Blackman, 


John Dewey," 




David McCracken. 


William Munger, 


Zenas Bigelow. 




Township 12, Range 1. 


Eleazer Cantling, 


T. 12, R. 


2. 


Worthy L. Churchill, 


Nathaniel Walker, 


Gideon Dunham, 




William Rumsey, 


John A. Thompson, 


Isaac Sutherland, 




Daniel Curtis, 


Peter Stage, 


Samuel F. Geer, 





Note. — In this list the names of settlers upon Hoops' tract at Olean, Phelps and 
Chipman's purchase in Sheldon, and Loomis' purchase in Bennington, are not included. 
The settlements of those tracts will be noted separately. [EFMuch pains has been taken 
to include in the list, the names of all settlers, during the years 1801, '2, '3, '4, '5, and 
'6, but still there may be some names omitted of those who were actual settlers during 
the period; and there may be names of tliose who took contracts and never became 
settlers; though the instances are but few in either case. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 



455 



T. 12, R. 2. 

Peter Lewis, 
John Forsj-th, 
John Lamberton, 
Russel Noble. 

T. 12, R. 5, 
Orlando Hopkins, 
Otis Ingalls, 
David Cully, 
Peter Vanderventer. 



Batavia Village. 

Charles Cooley, 
James McKain, 
Elisha Gettings, 
Joseph Alvord, 
Zerah Phelps, 
Elijah Tillotson, 
James W. Stevens, 
Hezekiah Rhoads, 
Rufus Hart, 
Israel M. Dewey 
James Brisbane, 
William Wood, 
Major Nobles, 
Russell Crane, 
Oswald Williams, 
Rowlen Town, 
Silas Chapin, 
Ebenezen Cary, 
Paul Hinkley, 
Timothy Washburn, 
Moses Hayse, 
James Holden, 
Elijah Spencer, 



Batavia Village. 
John S. Leonard, 
James Clement, 
Jeremiah Cutler, 
Elisha Mann. 

T. 5, R. 1. 
Job Phillips, 
Neheiniah Sayer, 
David Sanford, 
Ezra Sanford, 
Stephen Van Demark, 
Samuel Lamb, 
Ziber Ruff. 

T. 9, R. 1. 
Elizur Webster, 
Josiah Hovey, 
Nehemiah Fargo, 
Samuel Chamloerlin, 
Gideon R. Truesdell. 

T. 10, R. 1. 

Samuell Ewell, 
John Hill, 



T. 13, R. 2. 

Aaron White, 
Peter Rice. 

T. 12, R. 6. 
Asa Chapman, 
Christopher Saddler, 
Levi Fehon, 
Abraham Shope, 
John Haines, 
John Gardner, 

1802. 

Batavia Village. 
Benjamin Russell, 
Paul Hill, 
Peter Powers, 
Silas Chapiu, 
Daniel Curtis, 
Libbeus Fish, 
Henry Wilder, 
Jessee Hurlbut. 

T 10, R. 1. 
Enos Selleck, 
Jabez Warren, 
Sterling Stearns, 
Thomas Cahoon, 
James Fay. 

T. 11, R. 2. 
Lewis Disbrow. 

T. 12, R. 1. 
Elisha Adams, i 
Roswell Graham. 

T. 10, R. 2 
Benjamin Porter, 
Stephen Crow, 

1 803. 

T. 10, R. 1. 

Frederick Gilbert, 
Reuben ChamberHn, 
Elijah Cutting, 
David Torrey, 
Job Cowen, 
John Roberts, 
Zophar Evans, 
Daniel Vanorman, 
Jonathan Curtis, 
Samuel Toles. 

T. 11, R. 1, 
John Torrey, 
Charles Culver, 
Abner Ashley, 
Elisha Wallace, 
David Hall, 
Sylvester Lincoln, 
M. Scott, 
Nathaniel Pinney, 
Orsamus Kellog, 
George Lathrop, 
Solomon Kingsley, 



T. 12, R. 6. 

Frederick Buck, 
Jolm Warren, 
Timothy Hopkins, 
Joseph Roades, 
Wm. Updegraff, 
Timothv Janes. 



T. 10, R. 2. 

Nathaniel Sprout, Jr., 
Nathaniel Sprout. 

T. 11, R. 2. 
Alexander Rea, 
John Olney, 
George Darrow. 

T. 12, R. 2. 
Samuel F. Geer, 
Benjamin Morgan. 

T. 13, R 2. 
Daniel Ayer, 
Job Babcock. 

T. 12, R. 5. 
Samuel Hill, 
Samuel Miles, 
John Hill. 

T. 12, R. 6. 

Thomas Stancliff. 

T. 14, R. 6. 
John Dake, 
Jedediah Darling. 



T. 11, R. 1. 

Jedediah Riggs, 
Horace Shepherd, 
John Dewey, 
Lyman D. Prindle, 
Samuel Prindle, 
Oliver Fletcher. 

T. 12, R. 1. 
Lewis Disbrow, 
Ebenezer Eggleston, 
Peter Powers, 
Enos Kellog, 
Charles Culver, 
John Henry, 
Moses Dimmick, 
Robert Berr}% 
Stephen Wickham, 
Lemuel T. Pringle. 
James Guttridge, 
James Fuller, 
John Berry, 
John Spencer, 
Burgess Squire, 



456 



HISTORY OF THE 



T. 12, R. 1. 

Moody Stone, 
Asa Osborne, 
Elisha A. Eades, 
Parley Fairbanks. 

T. 13, R. 1. 

Archileus Whitten, 
David Kingsley, 
Thomas Parker. 

T. 9, R. 2. 
L. JV'athan Finch, 
James Sayres, 
John Place, 
Joseph Ethridge, 
Christopher Sly, 
Benjamin Sly. 
Benjamin Spencer. 

T. 10 R. 2. 
Parmenio Adams, 
Isaac Townsend. 

T. 11, R. 2. 
Ezekiel Churchill, 
George Darrow, 
Elijah Root, 
Joseph Fellows, 
Miles Wilkinson, 
Benedict Ames. 

T. 12, R. 2. 
Peleg Douglass, 
Alanson Gunn, 
Benjamin Tainter, 
Henry Lake, 
John Lamberton, 
Hugh Henrj-, 
Amos Lamberton, 
Joshua Sutherland, 
William Pierce, 
EUsha Cox, 
David Bovven, 
Abraham Starks, 
William Lucus. 

T. 13, R. 2. 
Hiram Smith, 
Silas Pratt, 
William McGrath, 
George Lathrop, 
Darius Ayer, 
Philips Adkins, 
Lemuel L. Clark, 
James Robinson, 

T. 16, R. 2. 
John Farrin, 
James De Graw, 
Cornelius De Graw, 
James Walworth, 
Elijah Brown, 
John G. Brown, 
James McKenny, 
Elisha Hunt, 
James Dunham, 
David Mussleman, 



T. 16, R. 2. 

Samuel Utter, 
Ray Marsh, 
Henry Z. Lovell, 
John Parmeter, 
William Carter, 
Martin Griffin, 
Stephen Hoyt, 
Eli Griffiith, 
William Griffiths. 

T. 10, R. 3. 
Nathan Tolls, 
Gilbert Wright. 

T. 12, R. 3. 
Jessee Tainter, 
Abner Lamberton, 
Micajah Brooks. 

T. 12, R. 5. 

Gilbert Yeomans, 
Charles Barnev, 
Aaron Beard, 
William Chapin, 
Asahel Powers, 
Samuel Hill, 
Jacob Durham, 
Robert Durham, 
Benjamin Smith. 
Samuel Estell. 

T. 14, R. 5. 
Gad Warner, 
Lemuel! Ashley, 
Henr)' Elsworth, 
David Munu, 
John Caldwell. 

T. 15, R. 5. 
John Morrison. 
Amason Darling, 
James Davidson, 
John Dunn. 

T. 11, R. 6. 
Alanson Egleston, 
William Sheldon. 
Amos Woodward. 

T. 12, R. 6. 
Andrew Durmat, 
Thomas Gaboon, 
Jacob Baum, 
George Shumer, 
Zera Ensign, 
Jacob Shope, 
Richard Coffin, 
Dennis McNay, 
Thomas M'Clintock. 

T. 14, R. 6. 
Michaga Howe, 
Daniel Bachelder, 
John Pickard, 
Major Slayton, 
Henry Swartz, 
John Brewer, 
Israel Owen, 



T. 14, R. 6. 
Nathan Powers, 
Dennis Mackev, 
Ransford White, 
Stephen Hoyt, 
James Dunn, 
Thomas Slayton. 

T. 8, R. 7. 
Charles Johnson, 
OHver Johnson, 
Benjamin Vanorman, 
George Heacocks, 
James Clemoions, 
Bedford Hecocks, 
Samuel Eaton, 
Cyrus Hopkins. 

T. 12, R. 
Henry Lake, 
Samuel Kelso, 
Benjamin Gardner, 
Perez Brown, 
Abijah Hewit, 
William Lewis, 
John Sample, 
Ezekiel Lane. 

T. 14, R. 7. 
William Howell, 
Isaac Tyler. 

T. 11, R. 8. 
Elijah Rowan, 
James S. Young, 
Stephen Welton, 
Zadock Butler, 
Jonathan Burnett, 
Matthias Clute, 
Joseph Wells, 
Richard Munn, 
Abram Round, 
Thomas Fourth, 
Abraham Bemcr, 
Nathaniel Titus, 
William Keeler. 

T. 14, R. 8 
Philip Beach, 
John O. Prentice, 
Chapman Hawley, 
Adam Strouse, 
Eli Harris, 
Jessee Beach. 

T. 14, R. 9. 
John Beach, 
Lemuel Cook, 
David Thompson, 
Samuel Taylor, 
John Gould, 
Solomon Gillett. 

T. 15, R. 9. 

Elijah Doty, 
John Waterhouse, 
Silas Hopkins, 
Peter Hopkins, 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 



457 



T. 15, R. 9. 
Obadiah Hopkins, 
Coonrod Zittle, 
Ephraim Hopkins, 



Buffalo. 
William Robbins, 
Henry Chapin, 
Sylvanus Maybee, 
Asa Ransom, 
Thomas Stewart, 
Samuel Pratt, 
William Johnson, 
John Crow, 
Joseph Landon, 
Erastus Granger, 
Jonas Williams, 
Robert Kain, 
Vincent Grant, 
Louis Le Couteulx. 

Irving. 
John Mack, 
Charles Aver}'. 

T. 4, R. I. 
Benjamin ChamberUn, 
Calvin T. Chamberlin, 
Jedidiah Nobles, 
Elisha Chamberlin, 
William Pinkerton, 
Marvin Harding, 
Isaac Sanford, 
Abraham D. Hendern. 

T. 9, R. 1. 
William Knapp, 
Jonas Cutting, 
Elijah Cutting, 
Josiah Boardman, 
Shubael Morris, 
Josiah Hovey, Sen., 
Josiah Hewitt, 
Josiah Jewitt, 
Lyman Morris. 

T. 10, R. 1. 
Abner Bacon, 
Amzi Wright, 
Asahel Wright, 
Reuben Chamberlin, 
Gideon Bardock, 
Samuel Ewell, 
Jonathan Whitney, 
Reuben Hall, 
Elihu Hall, 
Edmun(J Curtis, 
Samuel Olcutt, 
Henry Ewell. 

T. 11, R. 1. 
Peter Adley, 
Isaac Wright, 
Elijah Bristol, 
Israel Shearer, 



T. 15, R. 9. 
John demons, 
Robert Bigger, 
James Benedict, 

1 804. 

T. 11, R. 1. 

Alanson Jones, 
Joseph Hawks, 
Joel S. Wilkinson, 
Peleg Douglass, 
Isaac R. Wright, 
Elisha Giddings, 
John Smith, 
Abner Ashley, 
Charles Culver, 
William Coggshall, 
William B. Coggshall, 
John Halstate, 
John Grimes, 
James Cowdrj', 
John Roberts, 
David Tyrrill. 

T. 12, R. 1. 
Nathaniel Walker, 
Pardon Starks, 
Zenos Keyes, 
Benjamin Cary, 
Alfred Lincoln, 
Horace Jerome, 
Nathan Miner. 

T. 13, R. 1. 
John S. Sprague, 
Nathaniel Johnson. 

T. 16, R. 1. 
Nathan Wilson, 
Halley Foster, 
James Walworth. 

T. 9, R. 2. 
Solomon West, 
John Ames. 

T. 10, R. 2. 
John Smith, 
John Richardson, 
Stewart Gardner, 
Daniel Gardner, 
Daniel Burbank, 
Nathaniel Sprout, Jr., 
Eli Hays, 
Daniel White, _ 
Zadock Williams, 
Zadock Whipple. 

T. 11, R. 2. 
Elijah Root, 
Samuel Russell, 
Benham Preston, 
Elisha Carver, 
Elias Lee, 
Jessee Hawkins, 
Solomon Blodgett, 
Rufus Blodgett, 



T. 15, R. 9. 

William McBride, 



T. 11, R. 2. 
John Lee, 
Ezekiel T. Lewis, 
Elijah Rowe. 

T. 12, R. 2. 
Elizur Messenger, 
Isaac Smith, 
Levi Davis, 
Azor Marsh, 
David Smith. 

T. 13, R. 2. 
Rufus Hastings, 
Roraback Robinson, 
Benjamin Chase, 
Solomon Baker, 
Samuel Jerome, Sen., 
Samuel Jerome, Jr. 

T. 16, R. 2. 
Samuel M'Kinney, 
John Jason, 
Henry Lovewell, 
William Carter, 
Job Shipman, 
Ephraim Waldo. 

T. 10, R. 3. 
William Webber, 
John Jones, 
Asa Jones, 
Isaac A. Kerman, 
Ebenezer Smith, 
Almond C. Law, 
Elial C. Spencer, 
Joseph Browning, 
Stephen Smith. 

T. 12, R. 3. 
David Goss. 

T. 12, R. 4. 
John Richardson, 
Stephen B Tilden, 
Jacob Farnham. 

T. 13, R. 4. 
James Walworth. 

T. 9, R. 5. 
Thomas Tracy, 
Cornelius Annis. 

T. 12, R. 5. 
Robert Durham, 
Silas Hill, 
Tobias Cole. 
John Felton, 
Abraham Voak, 
Stephen Tilden, Jr., 
Charles Bennett, 
Thomas Hill. 



458 



HISTORY OF THE 



T. 15, R. 5. 

Daniel Brown, 
John Palmeter. 

T. 9, R. 6. 
Joel Adams, 
John Adams, 
Daniel Hascall, 
James Merriam, 
Henry Godfrey, 
Nathaniel Walker, 
Walter Paine, 
Reuben Hall, 
Epaphroditus Nott, 
Nathaniel Emerson, 
Joseph Sears, 
Humphrey Smith, 
Peter Wells. 

T. 11, R. 6. 
Joseph Halks, 
Silas Pierce, 
Peter Pratt, 
David Hamlin, 
John Truman, 
James Woodward, 
Warren Hull, 
Joseph Parmelee, 
Matthew Wing, 
Lawson Egberton, 

T, 12, R. 6. 
David Bailey, 
Gideon Royce, 
Riley Munger. 
David Hamlin, 
Daniel Robinson 
Gardner Spooner, 
Peter Pratt, 
David Bailey, Jr. 
Isaac Vanorman, 

T. 14, R. 6. 

Charles Wilber, 
Isaac Clark, 

T. 15, R. 6. 

Jedediah Riggs, 
Joshua Slaj'ton, 

T. 8, R. 7. 
Noah Smith, 
Jesse Norton, 

T. 9, R. 7. 
Paul Sturdevant, 



T. 9, R, 7. 
Colton Fletcher, H. L. Co'e 

Surveyor. 
Ezekiel Smith, 
Amos Colrin, 
David Eddy, 

T. 11, R. 7. 
William Maltby, 

T, 12, R. 7. 
Joel ChamberUn, 
John Wisner, 
Harry White, 
Abijah Hewett, 
Abiel Gardner, 
Jacob B. Vanatter, 
EHsha Cox, 
Samuel McConnell, 
Joseph Draper, 
Caleb Rogers, 
Stephen Colvin, 
Zebulon Ackley, 
Isaac Underwood, 

T. 14, R. 7. 
John Forsyth, 

T. 9, R. 8. 

Joel Harvey, 
Denniston Foster, 
WiUiam C. Dudley 
Nathaniel Titus. 

T. 11, R. 8. 

Joseph Hewitt, 
Ira Allen, 
John Starkey, 
Samuel Joy, 
Daniel Chapin, 
John C. Staley, 
John Farr, 
Peter Getty, 
Amasa T. Grant, 
Edmund Raymond, 
Joseph N. Rood, 
Ezra Whipple, 
John Aiken, 
Rowland Cotton, 
Nathan Perry, 
Asa Chapman, 
Christian Staley. 



T. 14, R. 8 
Joseph Howell, 
Joash Taylor. 

T. 13, R. 9. 
Nicholas Whittinger 

T. 14, R. 9 
George Armisted, 
Erasmus Enos, 
James Powers, 
Robert Moore, 
Hugh Hewitt, 
Amasa Stoughton, 
Samuel Stoughton, 
James Pue, 
Benjamin Pomeroy, 
Philip Beach, 
Elias Rose, 
Daniel Totten, 
Henry Totten, 
Parley Wallace, 
Josiah Benjamin, 
Joseph Taylor, 
Asahel Taylor, 
Asahel Sage. 

T. 15, R. 9. 
Ephraim Hopkins. 
Samuel Hopkins, 
Peter Hopkins, 
John Freeman, 
John Wilson. 

T. 6, R. II. 
Zenas Barker, 
Francis Webber, 
Hasadiah Stebbins, 
William Webber, 
Alanson Holmes, 
Abner Holmes. 

T. 2, R. 12. 
William Bemus. 

T. 6, R. 12. 
Thomas McClintock, 
Low Munnagan, 
Benjamin Barrett, 
Zatter Cushing. 

T. 5, R. 13. 
James Dunn. 

T. 3, R. 15. 
Alexander Cochrane, 
Thomas Robinson. 



Batavia Village. 

William Ewing. 

Buffalo. 
Cyrenus Chapin, 
Thomas Sidwell, 
Nathaniel W. Seaver, 
Isaac- Rhoads, 
Samuel Tupper. 



1805. 

T. 5, R. 1. 

Loring Francis. 

T. 7, R. 1. 

Peter Granger, 
Isaac Granger, 
Eli Griffith, 
Philip Fuller. 



T. 8, R. 1. , 

William Bristol, 
Benjamin Morse, 
Elnathan George, 
James Cravath. 

T. 9, R. 1. 
Nehemiah Fargo, 
Josiah Boardman, 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 



459 



T. 9, R. 1. 

Daniel Bates, 
Hezekiah Wakefield, 
Giles Parker, 
Lott Merchaut. 

T. 10, R. 1. 

Elihu Hall, 
James Plall, 
David Tyrrill, 
Israel M. Dewey, 
George Harper, 
William White, 
Ward Davis, 
Marshall Davis, 
Samuel Bartle-tt, 
.lames Ward, 
Ephraim Cleveland, 
Zira Dunbar, 
Dudley Nichols, 
David Morgan, 
Waller Underwood, 
Joel Strong, 
John White, 
Abraham Thomas, 
Humphrey Gardner, 
Edmund Curtis, 
Robert Wilson. 

T. 11, R. 1. 

Phineas Smith, 
Harvey Prindle, 
Cyrenus Glass, 
William Williams, 
David Anderson, 
Solomon Lathrop, 
Jonathan Bixby, 
Jason Bixby, 
Ezekiel Fox, 
Philo Whitcomb, 
John Greenough, 
Gersham Orvis, 
Heman Brown, 
Nathaniel Brown, 
Peter Putnam, 
Patrick Alvord, 
Alford Rose, 
Richard Stiles, 
John Chambers, 
Thomas Halsted, 
John Boynton, 
Eli Perry, 
Abel Buell, 
Joseph Bartlett, 
David Morgan, 
Asher Lamberton, 
Israel Buell, 
William Bannister, 
Amasa Bobbins, 
Jesse Cowdry, 
Isaac Wilson, 
Josiah Southard, 
John Grimes. 



T. 12, R. 1. 

Asa Webster, 
James Heacocks, 
Oliver Sweatwell, 
Asa Osborn, 
Hiel Chapman, 
Abel McKain, 
Nathan Graham, 
Joseph Bentley. 

T. 13, R. 1. 
Hiram Smith, 
Col. Samuel Hall, 
Horace Carr, 
Benjamin Chase, 
Ehsha Kellogg, 
Dudley Sawn,'er, 
Samuel Cumings, 
Nathan Miner, 
Silas Torry, 
Edmund Burgess. 

T. 9, R. 2. 

Seth Sherman, Jr. 
Lemuel Chase, 
Seth Sherwood, 
Adiel Sherwood, 
Eebenezer Tyrrill, 
James Coates, 
Samuel Wilson, 
Enos Smith, 
John Wilcox, 
J-ames Duncan, 
Gideon Sly, 
Noah Willis, 
Elisha Doty, 
John Grover. 

T. 10, R. 2. 

Lemuel Whaley, 
Zadock Whipple, 
Nehemiah Osborn, 
Joseph Munger, 
John Kean, 
Francis Rogers, 
Joel Bradner, 
Dan Adams, 
Elihu Beckwith, 
Elijah Rice, 
Joseph Hopkins, 
David Beckwith, 
Benjamin Moulton, 
Simeou Porter, 
Luther Stanhope, 
Stephen Crawford, 
Orator Holcomb, 
Benjamin Nelson, 
Nathaniel Eastman, 
Samuel Smith, 
Nancy Wood, 
Thomas Whaley, 
Patrick Alvord, 
Levi Stanhope, 
Joseph Munger, 
John M. Coffin. 



T. 10, R. 2. 

EUphalet Hodges, 
Benjamin Powers, 
Clark Burlingarae. 

T. 11, R. 2. 
John M'Cormick, 
Levi Harris, 
William Prout, 
Asa Buckley, 
Ezra Blodgett, 
Noah Brooks, 
Asa Frost, 
Nathaniel Eastman, 
Thomas Lee, - --' ' 
Daniel Rawson, 
David Rowland, 
Elisha Fox, 
Seth Landon, 
Stephen Day, 
Abijah Warren, ' 
Samuel Reed, 
Daniel Davis, 
Manna Chase, 
Amos Adams, 
Joseph Gladden, 
Joseph Cady, 
John Olney, 

Gurdon Williams, 

Jonas Marsh, 

Charles C. Jackson, 

Elisha Sutton, 

WiUiam Burton, 

William King, 

Isaac King, 

Samual Benedict. 

T. 12, R. 2. 

Timothy Washburn, 

Thomas Godfrey, 

Reuben W. Wilder, 

Rufus M'Cracken, 

Azor Nash, 

Lemuel L. Clark, 

Joel Tvrrell, 

Hugh Duffy, 

James Henry, 

Richard Godfrey, 

John Algur, 

John Herring, 

Jonathan Wood, 

Reuben Lamberton, 

Amos Lamberton, 

Paul Hill, 

Silas Dibble, Jr. 

T. 16, R. 2. 
Paul Brown, 
Job Johnson, 
Ephraim Waldo, 
David Miller, 
Thaddeus Moore. 

T. 10, R 3. 
Peter Putnam, 
William Adams, 



460 



HISTORY OF THE 



T. 10, R. 3. 

Job Matteson, 
John Calkins, 
William Hudson, 
Bartholomew Armstrong, 
Charles Armstrong', 
Jonathan Wirton, 
Jonas P. Tracy, 
Samuel Rust, 
Charles Imus, 
John Culver, 
Aaron Whitney, 
Eleazer B. Stillwell, 
David Hand. 

T. 11, R. 3. 
Orange Carter, 
Israel Doane, 
Samuel Russell, 
James Jones, 
David Clark. 

T. 4, R. 4. 
Joseph McCluer, 
John Kent, 
John L. Irwin, 
Solomon Curtis, 
Henr}' Conrad, 
Daniel Cortrecht. 

T. 5, R. 4 
Asaph Butler, 
Jeremiah Burroughs, 
John McCluer, 
William Vinton, 
Calvin Chamberlin, 
Elijah Johnson. 

T. 12, R. 4. 
Francis B. Drake, 
David Sarles, 
Noah Pease, 
Ephraim Pease. 

T. 9, R. 5. 
John Hunter, 
Ezekiel Hall, 
Solomon Hall, 
Asa Hall, 
Samuel Hays, 
Mons Hays, 
Charles McKay, 
William Alden, 
Amos Clark, 
William Hoj-t, 
John Rolph, 
Peleg Witmore. 

T. 12, R. 5, 
John Beamer, 
Eli Hammond, 
Isaac Smith, 
William Hill, 
Mons Fountaine, 
Salmon Sparling, 
George Sparling, 
Henry Russell, 
John Henry. 



T. 4, R. 5. 
David McCluer, 
John S. Warner, 
Job Pixley, 
Thomas Horton, 
Willard Humphreys, 
John Warner. 

T. 13, R. 5. 
John Henry. 

T. 15, R. 5. 
Oliver Castle. 

T. 14, R. 2. 
David Dunn, 
Micajah Howe. 

T. 9, R. 6. 

Abel Adams, 
Simeon Lackey, 
Christoper Stone, 
Luther Hibbard, 
Timothy Paine, 
Nathaniel Morcy, 
Amasa Lackey, 
Asa Hall, 
Humphrey Smith, 
Calvin Field. 

T. 11, R. 6. 
John Barrow, 
Jacob Mussleman, 
William Rogers, 
Dudley Norton, 
John Redford. 

T. 12, R. 6. 
Edmund Thompson, 
George Croup. 

T. 14, R. 6. 

Nathan Clark, 
Reuben Lewis. 

T. 15, R. 6. 

Nathan Toles. 

T. 16, R. 6. 
William Gordon, 
Rimmon Colion, 
Stephen Colton, 
Isaac B. Tyler, 
Burgoyne Kemp, 
Ira Potter, 
William Wisner, 
David Wisner, 
Francis Albright. 

T. 3, R. 7. 
Stephen Hazelton, 
John Ricard. 

T. 8, R. 7. 
Benjamin Whaley, 
Jotham Bemus, 
Thurston Waters, 
Richard Can,', 
Aaron Lindsley, 
Jonathan Bump, 
William Drake, 



T. 8, R. 7. 
Oliver Johnson, 
Samuel Eaton. 

T. 9, R. 7. 
John Somers, 
Thomas Carroll, 
George Colvin, 
Jotham Bemus, 
Jonathan Emerson, 
Benjamin Enos, 
Henry Arnold, 
Jacob Eddy, 
Daniel Rooks, 
Reuben Newton, 
Asa Sprague, 
Samuel Knapp, 
Joseph Sheldon, 
William Coltrin, 
Henrj' Cole, 
Thomas Walton, 
Jonathan Fish, 
John Garrison, 
Stephen Kellogg, 
Gilbert Palmer, 
Oliver Curtis, 
Abijah Nichols. 

T. 11, R. 7 
James Harmon, 
Horatio Kelsey. 

T. 12, R. 7. 
Alexander Logan, 
John King, 
John Hersev. 

T. 14 R. 7. 
Isaac Trowbridge, 
Garrett Stoughton. 

T. 15, R. 7. 
Moses Hutchins, 
William Chambers, 
John Armstrong, 
Digby Small. 

T. 9, R. 8. 
Tyler Sacket, 
Jacob Depue, 
Russell Goodrich, 
Rufus Belden, 
Jabez Lewis, 
John Reeves, 
Abel Buck, 
Ezekiel Chapman, 
Gideon Dudley, 
iNathaniel Titus, 
Samuel P. Hibbard, 
King Root, 
Winslow Perry. 

T. 11, R. 8. 
Leander Hamlin, 
James Harris, 
Abijah Hewitt, 
Ransom Harmon, 
Ezra Beebe, 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 



461 



T. 11, R. 8. 

Samuel Boebe, 
William Desha, 
Abel Beebe. 

T. 12, R. 8. 
Abial Walton. 

T. 13, R. 8. 
Benjamin L Kelso. 

T. 14, R. 9. 
Benjamin Dickson. 
T. 8, R. 9. 
Elijah Kenny. 

T. 13, R. 9. 

Zacharias Warren, 
Dennis Morris, 
Isaac Swain. 

T. 14, R. 9. 
Solomon Skinner, 
Jacob Bragbill, 
Reuben Kurd, 
Frederick Braofwell, 
Ellas Benchard, 
Solomon Gould. 

T. 15, R. 9. 
William Coggswell, 
Jonathan Jones, 
Samuel Shelly. 

T. 6, R. 10. 
Jesse Skinner, 
John Skinner, 
John Tvler, 



T. 6, R. 10. 
David Marsh. 

T. 5, R, 11. 
Abiram Orton. 

T. 6, R. 11. 

Jared Griswold, 
Orsamus Holmes, 
Thomas Phillips, 
John Hollister, 
William Gould, 
William Waker, 
Clark Cleveland, 
Joseph Phillips, 
Manassah Munn, 
Simeon Austin, 
Luke Coon, 
Abner Holmes, 
Thomas Stebbins, 
Jonathan Webber. 

T. 3, R. 12 
William Bemus. 

T. 5, R. 12. 
Edmund Barber, 
Samuel Davis, 
Samuel Perry, 
Augustus Burnham. 

T. 6, R. 12. 
Benjamin Burnett, 
Seth Roberts, 
Amzi Rue, 
Asa Hamlin. 



T. 6, R. 12. 
Ambrose Dean, 
Salah Seymour, 
Joel Lee, 
Richard Douglass, 
Rufus Langdon, 
Philip Osborn, 
Seth Cole. 

T. 3, R. 13. 

Calvin Chrmberhn, 
Elijah Bennett, 
Alanson Waite, 
Philo Sackett, 
Joseph Thayer, Jr. 
William Sackett, 
Jonathan Smith, 
Peter Barnhard, 
Andrew Rogers, 
John Cochran. 
Elias Scofield, 
William Webber. 

T. 5, R. 13. 
Thomas McClintock. 

T. 3, R. 15, 
Benjamin Avery, 
Nathan Wisner, 
Israel Warriner, 
Ira Tracy, 
Daniel Cornwell, 
Samuel Harrison, 
Israel Goodrich. 



Buffalo. 

Asa Chapman, 
David Mather, 
Daniel Lewis, 
Oziel Smith, 
John White, . 
Eleazer Hovej'. 

Irving. 
Aaron Dolph, 
William Tuttle, 
Elijah Lane, 
Henry Johnson. 

Mayvili.k. 
Judah Chamberlin, 
Bartle Laffert, 
Lawrence Cary. 

T. 3, R. 1. 

Simon Gates, 
William Burnett, 
James Green, 
Seth ."\Iarvin, 
William Higgins, 
Levi Couch. 

T. 6, R. 1. 
Roger Mills, 
Frederick Mills, 



1806. 

T. 6, R. 1. 
Elisha Mills, 
Joshua SkitF, 
Moses Robinson. 

T. 7, R. I 
Azel Lyon, 
Asahel Newcomb, 
Micah Griffith, 
Joshua Powers, 
Alanson Landon, 
Oliver Stacy, 
Arunah Cooley, 
Amos Bill, 
Abner Bill, 
Aaron Fuller, Jr. 
Eli Griffith, Jr. 
Thomas Warden, 
Christopher Olin, 
Thomas Dole, 
Asahel Trowbridge, 
John Stewart, 
Eli Stewart, 
John Willard, 
Alexander Axtell, 
David Hoyt, 
Roger Mills. 



T. 8, R. 1. 

Elijah Warner, 
Barzilla Yeats, 
Reuben Orvis, 
Nehemiah Parks, 
Isaac George, 
Wheelock Wood, 
Willard Thayer, 
Ebenezer West, 
Ithurial Flower, 
Pearl Flower. 

T. 9, R. 1. 
Solomon Morris, 
Shubael Morris, 
Abijah Jacocks, 
Daniel Ferguson, Jr. 
Daniel Knapp, 
Elkanah Day, 
Peter W. Harris, 
Aaron Bailey, 
Nathan Pierce, 
Stephen James, 
Dwight Nobles, 
Stephen Perkins, 
Joseph Palmer, 
John Utter, J-r. 
Ames Keener, 



462 



HISTORY OF THE 






T. 9, R. 1. 

Gideon R. Truesdell, 
Jeremiah Truesdell, 
Isaac Jacocks, 
Gideon Thayer, 
Josiah Hovey, Jr. 
Alexander Blowers. 

T. 10, R. 1. 

VViUard Chaddock, 
Solomon Prindle, 
John Smith, 
Eliphalet Owen, 
David Thompson, 
Jonathan Thompson, 
Isaac Marsh, 
Timothy Mallison, 
David Foster, 
Elisha Smith, 
Joseph White, ^ 
Daniel Hoyt. 

T. 11, R. 1. 

Daniel W. Bannister, 
Jerry Cowdrj', 
Thomas Starkweather, 
Mens Goodrich, 
Lewis Barney, 
David Morgan, 
Ebenezer Wilson, 
David Filkin, 
Peter Davidson, 
Chester Davidson, 
Franklin Putnam, 
David Stewart, 
Lyman D. Prindle, 
Joseph Shcdd, 
Henry Miller, 
Orsamus Kellogg, 
Ebenezer Eggleston. 
Henry Rumsey, 
Elijah Bristol, 
Elisha Andrews, 
David lugersoll, 
Joseph Bartlett. 

T. 12, R. 1. 

Solomon Sylvester, 
Daniel B. Brown, 
Israel Graham, 
Moses Norton, 
Peter Putnam, 
Amos Jones, 
Alvah Jones, 
Stephen Powell, 
Webster Powers, 
Robert Norton, 
Benjamin Graham, 
Joseph Savaeool, 
Henrj' Stringer, Jr„ 
Samuel Ranger, 
Peter Stage, 
Gurden Huntington, 
John Gould. 



T. 13, R. 1. 
Joel Jerome, 
James Mills, 
Horace Jerome, 
Aaron White, 
Enos Kellogg, 
Ephraim Wortman, 
Benjamin Chase, 
Sylvester Eldridge, 
Silas Terry, 
John Roraback. 

T. 1, R. 2. 

Thomas Lightfoot, 
Thomas Smith, 
John Watson. 

T. 3, R. 2. 

Benjamin Riggs, 
Enos Silsby, 
Andrew Hawley, 
Stephen Coles, 
George W. Higgins, 
Levi Gregory, 
Richard Friar, 
James Haskins. 

T. 4, R 2. 

William Pinkerton, 
Jonathan Dodge, 
Samuel Crawford, 
Alpheus Dodge, 
Daniel Dodge, 
Ebenezer Horton. 

T. 9, R. 2. 
Aaron Kinsman, 
Silas Beckwith, 
Isaac Gardner, 
Truman Lewis, 
John Grover, 
Stephen King, 
Seth Sherwood, 
Jacob Howe, 
Reuben Morse, 
Ahaz Allen, 
Shubael Atkins, 
Lyman Cody, 
Levi Atkins. 

T. 10, R. 2. 
Jacob Wood, 
Charles M. Imus, 
John Grant, 
Levi Nelson, 
Dudley Nichols, 
Joseph Chaffer, 
Samuel Stanhope, 
William Osborn, 
Joseph Munger, 
Jonas Osborn. 
John Bailey, 
Elihu Beckwith, 
David Beckwith, 
James Sprout, 
Luther Stanhope, 



T. 10, R. 2. 

Noah Barker, 
Joel Maxon. 

T. 11. R.2, 
Elijah Root, Jr. 
Ezra Whipple, 
John Humphrey, 
James Clisby, 
Jacob Thompson, 
Amos Thompson, 
George Harrick, 
_ Joseph Carpenter, 
David S. Clement, 
William Wood, 
James Clisby, 
Jacob Thompson, 
Noah Brooks, 
Benjamin C. Goodrich, 
Joel Munn, 
Phiueas Muun, 
John W. Lawson, 
Andrew McLean, 
Ebenezer Seeley, 
John Olney, 
Joseph Van Debogart. 

T. 12, R. 2. 

Newcomb Godfrey, 
Elijah Clark, 
Richard Godfrey, 
Wm. J. McCracken, 
Edmund Badger, 
William H. Bush, 
Othniel Field, 
James Post, 
Caleb Blodgett, 
Samuel Risey, 
Elisha A. Eades, 
Joshua Barrett, 
Elisha Morehouse, 
Thomas Godfrey, 
Caleb Blodgett. 

T. 13, R. 2. 

Micajah Green, 
Caleb Blodgett, Jr. 
George Hoge, 
Eldridge Buntley. 
Nicholas Bently, 
George Harper, 
James Crossett, 
John Harper, 
David Woodworth, 
David Clark, 
William Parrish, 
Ezra Thomas, 
Caleb Blodgett. 

T. 1, R. 3. 
Jacob Swar, 
John Young, 
Asahel Atherton, 
Rufus Atherton, 
William Atherton, 
Daniel Edwards, 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 



463 



T. 1, R. 3, 
John Holdrich, 
Simeon Munson, 
Samuel Todd, 
Richard Frayer, 
Isaac Phelps, 
Ira Higgine, 
Daniel Church, 
Daniel McKay, 
Reuben Clark, 
James Green. 

T. 4. R. 3 
Robert Brooks, 
Solomon Rawson, 
David Markham, 
William Markham, 
Orrin Upson. 

T. 11, R. 3. 
Amos Jones, 
Joseph Fellows, 
Timothy Fay, 
Henry Rumsey, 
David Carter, 
Elnathan Wilcox, 
John Chamberlin, 
Alexander Little, 
Nahum Thompson, 
Jonas Blodgett, 
Isaac Chaddock, 
John M'Coliister, 
Burnham Lyman, 
Henrv William, 
David Clark, 
John Churchill, Jr. 
Reuben Nichols, 
Joseph Peters, 
Aaron Gale. 

T. 19, R. 3. 
Joseph Burlingham, 
Silas Call, 

Elial T. Spencer, 

Gardner Godfrew, 

Henry V. Champlin, 

Joseph Flint, 

Henry Clark. 

T. 2, R. 4. 

Asahel Beach, 

T. 10, R. 4. 

Chauncey Loomis, 

Justin Loomis. 

T. 12, R. 4. 

John Richardson, 

Jariel Scott, 

Samuel Carr. 

T. 5, R. 5. 

Gabriel Larkin, 

David Jenkins, 

Pell Teed, 

Ira Pratt, 

Ebenezer Reed, 

James Jennings. 



T. 9, R. 5. 

Amos Clark, 
Oliver Pattengell, 
Enock Lewis, 
Luther Adams, 
Asa Cook, 
James Hampton, 
Samuel Green, 
Rufus Earl, 
Stephen Kellogg, 
James Caldwell, 
Thomas Wortman, 
Johnson Street, 
Alexander McKay, 
Phinehas Stephens, 
Simeon McKay, 
Martin Roar, 
Abner Edwards. 

T. 12, R. 5. 
Aaron Beech, 
James Cronk, 
Elisha Geer, 
Jonathan Fisk, 
Joel Finch, 
Israel Taylor. 

T. 13, R. 5. 
David Higgins. 

T. 1, R. 6. 
Rufus Jemison. 

T. 9, R, 6 
John Conant, 
Solomon Hall, 
Timothy Fuller, 
Josiah Sumner, 
Ira Paine, 
Walter Paine, 
James S. Henshaw, 
James Hinds, 
Levi Lewis, 
Josiah Gale, 
Joseph Mallery, 
Oliver Pattengill, 
David Pattengill, 
Humphrey Smith. 

T. 11, R. 6. 
Stephen Morgan, 
Eh Carcutt, 
Thomas Mansfield, 
Samuel Clark, 
Arthur Miller, 
Peter Pratt, 
John W. Lawson, 
Ezekiel Sheldon, 
Luther Youngs, 
John Lawson, 
Jesse Hall, 
Stephen Chatfield, 
Joel Isbel, 
John Dunbar, 
Stiles Torrence. 



T. 12, R. 6. 
Perkins Shay, 
Asahel Canfield, 
David Nettle, 
Levi Felton, 
Edward Carney, 
David Bailey, 
John More, 
Jonathan Bennet, 
Henry Doney, 
Justice Webster. 

T. 14, R. 6. 
Leander Hamlin. 

T. 3, R. 7 . 
Benjamin Jones, 
Adam Johnson, 
Barnabus Weekham, 
Luther Stewart, 
John Wainwright, 
Alpheus Bascom, 
William Gilmore. 

T. 8, R. 7. 
Benjamin Whaley, 
Job Palmer, 
Daniel Smith, 
Jonathan Bump. 
Zenus Smith, 
Jacob Newkirk, 
Aldridge Colvin, 
Samuel Beebe, 
Calvin Doolittle, 
Elias Streeter, 
Josiah Metcalf, 
Joseph Yaw, 
Terrill Algur. 

T. 9, R. 7. 
Richard Smith, 
Zenus Smith, 
Ezekiel Smith, 
Josiah Gale, 
Thomas Webb, 
Nathan Peters, 
Jacob Wright, 
John Weaver, 
Eliakim Bradley, 
William Coltrin, 
Nathan Clark, 
Joseph Browning, 
Almon C. Lair, 
William Halladay. 

T. 11, R. 7. 

Seth Canfield, 
Enos A. Armstrong, 
James Harris. 

T. 12, R. 7. 
Emanuel Winter, 
Joseph Hayward, 
Oliver Standard, 
John Cunningham, 
Josiah Guthrie, 
Ebenezer Cone, 



464 



HISTORY OF THE 



T, 12, R. 7. 
Thomas Harman. 
Joseph Hersey. 

T. 14, R. 7. 
John Griffith, 
William Molyneuxi 
John Freeman, 
Ephraim Waldo. 

T. 8, R. 8. 
Joseph Tubbs, 
Stephen Baright, 
Benjamin Tubbs, 
Stephen Clifford, 
Benjamin Hodges. 

T. 9, R. 8. 
Abner Amsdell, 
Peter Pilky, 
Joseph Barnhart, 
Heman Newton, 
Henry Cheny, 
Frederick Lewis, 
Anna Bell, 
Svlvanus Rice, 
Matthew Blair, 
William Dean, 
Daniel Smith, 
Abel Buck. 

T. 13, R. 7. 
George VanSlyke, 
Eli Bradley. 

T. 11 R. 8. 
Daniel Ross, 
Joseph Wells, 
Jasper Parrish, 
John Lyon, 
Gideon Mosher, 
Samuel Haskell, 
Daniel Curtis, 
Marshall Smith, 
Major Nobles, 
John Semple, 
Benjamin Hodges, 
Addison Stewart, 
Samuel Sturgeon, 



T. 11, R. 8. 
Eli Hunt, 
Thomas Burger. 

T. 14, R. 8. 
Jonah Coolidge, 
Joseph Howell, Sen. 
Aaron Dennis, 
Charles Richards, 
Lewis Harris, 
James Burley. 

T. 13, R. 9. 
Ezekiel Hill, 
Benjamin Hopkins. 

T. 14, R. 9. 
Daniel Howell. 

T. 15, R. 9. 
Peter Ripson, 
John Brown, 
WilUam McBride. 

T. 6, R. 10. 

Abner Cooley. 

T. 6, R. 11. 
Ozias Hart, 
Justus Hinman, 
Thomas Stebbins, 
John E. Howard, 
John Cass, 
John Prior. 

T. 2, R. 12. 
WiUiam Bemus. 

T. 5, R. 12, 
Philo Orton, 
Daniel Redfield, 
Elisha Satterlee, 
Philip Osborne, 
Elijah Ripley, 
David Cooley, Jr., 
Reuben Edmunds. 

T. 6, R. 12, 
Elisha Mann, 
George Patterson, 
Ephraim Pease, 
Daniel S. Cole. 



T. 3, R. 13, 

Isaac Young, 
David Marshall, 
Joseph Cowell, 
James Prendergast, 
Marlen Prendergast, 
Jedediah Prendergast, 
William Prendergast, Jr. 
Elizabeth Prendergast, 
Susannah Whiteside, 
Matthew Prendergast, 
Philo Taylor, 
Amos Huntington, 
Paulus Pardee, 
Reuben Ellis, 
John Putnam, 
Robert Tupper, 
Jonathan Barnhart, 
Asher Moore, 
Uriah Scofield, 
Elias Scofield, 
Jared Goodrich, 
Peter Hogeboom, 
James Brown, 
Jonathan Cheeney, 
Harry Ingersoll, 
Henry Mott. 

T. 5, R. 13. 
James Dunn, 
Nathan Fay, 
Elisha Fay, 
Peter Kain, 
David Eaton. 

T. 3, R. 15. 

Daniel Cornwell, 
William Monman, 
Asa Spear, 
Josiah Farnham, 
William McBride, 
John Ayers 
Augustus Skinner, 
Benjamin Hutchins, 
Thomas Clump, 
William Crossgrove. 



The survey of the town plat of Batavia village having been 
made in 1800 — or it having been designated as the future site of 
the land office, and some lots platted — in 1801, the three persons 
named in the list, took contracts for lots. Rowe was the first tav- 
ern-keeper in Batavia; his location was nearly opposite the present 
land office, but afterwards changed, Mr. Ellicott making his five 
hundred acre reservation there. He became the founder of the 
"Keyes' stand." Under the administration, first of Rowe, and 
afterwards of Wm. Keyes, this stand was well known in all early 
times. It was the home of the early settler, when he had busmess 
at the land office; about its yard used to be seen the huge covered 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 465 

wagons that transported goods from Albany to Buffalo, and in the 
war of 1812 it was often the head quarters of the officers of the 
army. It was </(e tavern of early days. How changed! "Eagles,"' 
"Genesee Houses," and "Americans," overshadow it; the sign of a 
worthy mechanic " H. Naramor," swings in front of the venerable 
pioneer tavern. 

Russell was the founder of the site of the present Genesee 
House; was the next tavern-keeper after Rowe. His wife, the 
early landlaay, now Mrs. Gibbs, is with her husband, among the 
Mormons, in the gold regions of California ! M'Cracken was a 
physician; the first upon the purchase; enjoyed for a long period 
an extended practice; he died in Rochester a few years since. 
Four or five of this name, brothers, were early settlers at Batavia. 
The names of most of the settlers of 1801 are familiar to early 
residents. They formed the nucleuses of early settlements; the 
Buffalo road being at this period the only road, except Indian trails, 
they were scattered along almost its entire length upon the Purchase. 
Their log houses — their rude, imperfect accommodations, were lux- 
uries in those primitive times; havens of rest and comfort for the 
weary emigrant and his family, and the land explorer. 

In the month of February, 1802, Mr. Ellicott employed John 

Lamberton and Mayo, to cut out the road through the 

village of Batavia. About this period he informed Dudley Salton- 
stall, Esq., that the Company were prepared to loan money to actual 
settlers, " who would erect saw-mills, &c." 

In the winter of 1802, Mr. Ellicott spent a considerable time in 
Albany, " lobbying," as such visits to our state capital were after- 
wards termed; his paramount business being the project of a new 
county. This was consummated, but not without opposition. Mr. 
James Wadsworth had a counter project. It contemplated the 
erection of a county embracing all the territory west of a north 
and south line, which would cross the main road about midway 
between the Genesee river and Canandaigua; and tiie making of 
Hartford (Avon) the county site. Mr. Ellicott attributed his suc- 
cess to the absence of Mr. Wadsworth from Albany just at the time 
the subject came up for a final decision. He concluded that if he 
had been there, his " plausibility and address" would have occasioned 
him much trouble; and especially as his proposed territory con- 
tained enough inhabitants to immediately organize as a county. 

In the month of July, 1802, an occurrence took place at New 
30 



466 HISTORY OF THE 

Amsterdam, which was well calculated to create excitement ana 
alarm among the few scattered and defenceless inhabitants. The 
inkeeper, Joseph Palmer, was sitting in the evening near his house, 
in company with WilUam Ward and Joseph Keeler. An Indian 
from the Seneca village, approached them, and drawing a knife, 
made an ineffectual attempt to stab Palmer. He then turned upon 
Ward, and stabbed him in the neck. An alarm spread which soon 
drew together the few white inhabitants. In the attempt to secure 
the assassin, he stabbed John Hewitt in the breast, and in two other 
parts of the body, killing him almost instantly. The Indian was 
secured, and taken during the night to Fort Niagara, and lodged in 
safe custody. The next day a band of forty or fifty warriors 
appeared in the settlement, armed with rifles, tomahawks, and 
knives, threatening if the Indian was executed, they would put all 
the white inhabitants to death. Finding where some of the blood 
of the Indian had been spilled in securing him, the armed warriors 
howled over it in a manner to create dismay and consternation 
among the inhabitants, many of whom fled from the settlement. 

The circumstance created additional alarm, from the facts, that 
there was no personal provocation on the part of the three citizens 
attacked, and the Indian was sober.* The inference drawn by the 
defenceless inhabitants, was, that the attack was premeditated and 
concerted, and was the preliminary step to a general war upon the 
new settlers. Mingled with all this were jealousies that influences 
in Canada were operating upon the Indians. 

The few white inhabitants at New Amsterdam drew up and 
signed a petition to Gov. George Clinton, sohciting his influence 
with the general government to secure a small garrison of troops, at 
the " village of Buffalo creek, alias. New Amsterdam;" Mr. Ellicott 
interesting himself zealously in the measure; surveyors and settlers 
throughout the Purchase co-operating. The petition set forth that the 
8eneca Indians had on other occasions manifested an unfriendly spirit. 

The new county obtained, and the site of its public buildings 
determined upon, Mr. Ellicott soon gave his attention to the secur- 
ing of a Post Office. Mr. Seth Pease, one of his surveyors, was 
a brother-in-law of Mr. Granger, the then Post Master General. 
Taking advantage of a visit he made to Washington, he secured 

* The Indian was the one named in the biography of Major Barton. The friend who 
furnished the data of that biography to the author, was mistaken in supposing that the 
murder occurred in a drunken froHc. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 407 

his influence, and made him the bearer of an application. In his 
letter to the Post Master General, he confesses that but httle rev- 
enue can be expected from the proposed office, but he gives him an 
elaborate description of the country, its condition, prospects; and 
informs him that Avon is the nearest Post-office to the new county 
site. The application was granted; Mr. James Brisbane being 
appointed Post Master.* 

In 1802, Alexander Rhea and Lewis Disbrow, it will be observed, 
took lands south of the Buffalo road. Mr. Rhea became the 
founder of the village of Alexander; erected a saw-mill there in 
1804; he was an early surveyor of the Company, from Pennsyl- 
vania. His wife was a sister of Horatio and John H. Jones. 
Although Mr. Rhea took the first contract of land there, William 
Blackman was the pioneer settler of the town. He raised the first 
corn and the first wheat. A child of his was the first born in the 
town. Lewis Disbrow was the pioneer settler of Bethany. Rhea, 
Blackman and Disbrow were the pioneers of all the Holland" Pur- 
chase south of the Buffalo road. The four settlers noted in T. 10, 
R. 1, were, the same year, the pioneers farther south, in what is 
now Middlebury. 

Gideon Dunham, the pioneer who gave the name to the beautiful 
grove on the Batavia and Lockport road, died a few years since, at 
an advanced age. His son, Col. Shubael Dunham, died last fall, 
after an illness of several years. He had been a member of the 
State Legisture and a Presidential Elector. Previous to his decease 
the author obtained from him some of his recollections of early 
times. His father, it will be observed, was a settler in 1801. The 
road was cut out from Batavia to the Openings in that year. The 
road as first traveled was laid on the banks of the Tonawanda, to 
a point near the western side of the farm of William H. Bush, 
where it bore off passing through the back part of the farm of 
Isaac Sutherland, coming out on the present Lewiston road on the 
farm of Peter Lewis. Aaron White, who was a settler in 1801, 
was a Captain of militia in the war of 1812, and was killed at the 
battle of Black Rock on the morning Buffalo was burned. 

Among the early settlers in Elba, was Patrick O'Fling. In 1813 
the old gentleman, with three sons and a son-in-law, enhsted in the 
army. At Fort George, in 1813, Gen. Dearborn had his attention 
attracted by th« soldier-like bearing of the old man, and asked him 
where he had seen service. He replied, "in the Revolution, under 



408 HISTORY OF THE 

Captain Dearborn." A recognition followed, and Gen. Dearborr 
took so much interest in the family of soldiers, that, through him. 
two sons obtained commissions of Lieutenant in the army, and 
another was admitted as a cadet at West Point. One of the sons 
was killed at the sortie of Fort Erie. 

Col. Dunham said that in early years the speckled trout were 
abundant in all the small streams in that region. In 1804, he went 
with a party of the new settlers to attack a den of rattlesnakes at 
the Falls of the Tonawanda. It was in the spring — the snakes lay 
upon the rocks in coils, or bunches, as large in some instances as a 
bushel basket; there were hundreds of them. The party killed 
them by scores; it seemed to thin them out; but few were observed 
in that region afterwards. 

For four or five years after settlement commenced, salt was 
made at a salt spring on the Reservation. 

And here in the reminiscences of this primitive period, occurs 
the name of one who, if he did not follow as useful an employment 
as the keeping of a house of public entertainment, made himself as 
well known. Russell Noble ! At the bare mention of his name, 
there are surviving Pioneers, who will be reminded of their 
younger days, and their enjoyments; and, if there is "music in 
their souls," — as there was wont to be with most of them, — they 
will almost fancy they hear the notes of his old violin! A fiddler 
was no obscure person in those early days; and Noble had no 
competitor — for he v/n^ the pioneer fiddler; — he and his old viohn 
)nark the advent of music upon the Holland Purchase. Compared 
with his, 

" Italian frills were tame." 

In those primitive times, in sleigh, or (ox-sled) rides, at recreations 
that followed log-house raisings, logging bees, road cuttings; at 
Christmas and New Years frolics; far and wide, in the early sparse 
settlements, — Noble and his fiddle, formed an accustomed and 
necessary part. It was to be hoped that his reputation as a fiddler 
would have remained unquestioned; but recently, a facetious gath- 
erer up of reminiscences has ventured to slur it, by intimating that' 
he used to have no more '-regard for time than he had for eternity.^' 
The old fiddler still lives; and it was only last winter, that he 
was an occasional guest at the houses of surviving Pioneers — strip- 
ping the same old green bag from the same old fiddle, and reminding 
his auditors of early days. 



HOLLAxXD PURCHASE. 469 

Captain Samuel F. Geer, now of Medina, Orleans county, came 
to Batavia as early as 1802. Mr. Ellicott had erected the saw mill 
and got it in operation. Capt. Geer, assisted by Maj. Sutlierland, 
built the Court House at Batavia in 1802, and the grist mill in 1803. 
Capt. Geer built a saw mill at Medina as early as 1805; and in the 
same year, a building for the salt works, a mile and a half below 
Medina. Mr. Ellicott rented the works, and they soon run down. 

The author will here introduce some narratives of early settlers, 
which will enable the reader to get a more distinct view of early 
events — the commencement and progress of settlement — than 
could be obtained in any other form. They consist chiefly of notes 
taken by him in conversations with the early pioneers. 

A surviving son of the pioneer Jedediah Darling, has given the 
author some account of early times in Niagara. His father moved in 
in August, 1803; and died but a few weeks after, while returning 
from a visit to the land office; the sons were, therefore, principally 
identified with pioneer settlement. The Darling family took the 
first lands in all the region north of the Tonawanda Swamp, but 
were not the first settlers at the Cold Springs. Adam Strouse, a 
brother-in-law of the Howells, who had first lived at Lewiston, and 
had made the first commencement at Howell's Creek, had erected 
a shanty at the Cold Springs in the winter of 1802. The permis- 
sion was granted at the instance of Stephen Bates, Esq., of 
Canandaigua, the then mail contractor from Canandaigua to Fort 
Niagara. In his application to Mr. Ellicott, Mr. Bates is desirous 
that a fire should be kept there at least, that his mail carrier could 
have some place to warm his fingers. 

John Young settled on Oak Orchard road near Pine Hill, in 1804. 
He took the first deed ever given by the Holland Conpany. From 
his aged widow, now a resident of Batavia, with her son Brannan 
Young, Esq., the author derived the following narrative: — 

My husband having the year before been out and purchased his 
land upon the Holland Purchase, in the fall of 1804, we started 
from our home in Virginia on horseback, for our new location. We 
came through Maryland, crossing the Susquehanna at Milton; thence 
via Tioga Point, and the then usual route. 

In crossing the Allegany mountains, night came upon us. the 
horses became frightened by wild beasts and refused to proceed. 
We wrapped ourselves in our cloaks and horse bkinkets. and at- 
tempted to get some rest, but had a disturbed night of it. Panthers 
came near us, often giving terrific screams; the frightened horses 



470 HISTORY OF THE 

snorted and stamped upon the rocks. Taking an early start in the 
morning, we soon came to a settler's house, and were informed that 
we had stopped in a common resort of the panther. 

Arriving at our destination, a family by the name of Clark, had 
preceded us in the neighborhood. Myself and husband, and the 
family named, were the tirst settlers on the Oak Orchard road, — 
or in fact, north of Batavia. Mr. Clark was kind enough to give 
us a shelter for a few days until my husband built a shanty. It 
was about ten feet square, flat roofed, covered with split ash shin- 
gles; the floor was made of the halves of split bass wood; no chim- 
ney; a blanket answered the purpose of a door for a while, until 
my husband got time to make a door of split plank. We needed 
no window; the light came in where the smoke went out. So much 
for the shanty, and now for the furniture: — For chairs, we had 
benches made by splitting logs, and setting the sections upon legs. 
A bedstead was made by boring holes in the side of the shanty, 
inserting pieces of timber, which rested upon two upright posts in 
front; a side piece completing the structure; pealed bass wood bark, 
answering the place of a cord. We of course had brought no 
bed with us on horseback, so one had to be procured. We bought 
a cotton bag of Mr. Brisbane, and stuffing it with cat-tail, it was 
far better than no bed. Buying a little iron ware, crockery, and a 
few knives and forks, we were soon under way, house, or shanty 
keeping. 

We got our flour and meal the first year at Caledonia. The 
second year w^e were in, I had an attack of the fever and ague, 
which confined me for nearly a year. That year my husband 
cleared four acres; besides taking care of me, and doing the cook- 
ing. It was no uncommon thing, in the first years of settlement, 
for women in child birth to be deprived of the aid of a physician, 
and often, the attendance of their own sex had to be dispensed with. 
Mr. Young died in 1836. 

The old lady is 75 years old; enjoying a contented old age, 
cheerful, and even humorous in some of her descriptions of early 
pioneer life. 

Mrs. Anna Foster, wife of Eden Foster Esq. of Batavia, was 
the daughter of Jonah Spencer, who was a resident upon the 
Genesee river as early as 1791. She has given us an interesting 
narrative of events in that region at an early period, the (prelimi- 
nary portion of which we are under the necessity of omitting. In 
1796 she was the wife of Moody Stone, and resided at Palmyra 
Wayne county: — 

In the year 1796, I went with my husband to visit a brother-in- 
law, (Zenas Bigelow, Jr.) west of the Genesee river. We went 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 474 

by the way of Irondequoit; Dunbar kept a tavern there; forded the 
Genesee river above the Falls; there was but one house in 
Rochester, and that was occupied by Col. Fish. I remember, 
hearing my sister Mrs. Bigelow, say that she was present at the 
mouth of the river when the first schooner was launched, in 1798. 

In February, 1805, we settled upon a farm near Batavia. There 
was then inhabitants enough to make an agreeable neighborhood; 
[Here she enumerates the names of the settlers, most of which are 
inserted in our preceding list.] We used to have ox-sled rides, 
occasionally it would be out to uncle Gid Dunham's, where we used 
to avail ourselves of the services of the left handed fiddler, Russel 
Noble. Some of our earliest parties, were got up by first designa- 
ting the log house of some settler, and each one contributing to the 
entertainment; one would carry some flour, another some sugar, 
another some eggs, another some butter, and so on; the aggregate 
making up a rustic feast. These parties would alternate from 
house to house. Frolics in the evening, would uniformly attend 
husking bees, raisings, quiltings, and pumpkin pearings. All were 
social, friendly, obliging — there was little of aristocracy in those 
primitive days. 

The first general training west of the river was in 1706 or '7, it 
was north of Caledonia; Col. Atchinson was officer of the day; the 
next was at Alexander, in 1808; Col. Rumsey officer of the day. 

Wm. H. Bush, Esq. came from Bloomfield, Ontario county, and 
settled upon the Tonawanda three miles and a half below Batavia, 
at the place now called Bushville. His brief narrative well illus- 
trates pioneer settlement and progress: 

I moved my family from Bloomfield, in May, 1806. The 
settlers on Buffalo road, between my location and Batavia village, 
were Isaac Sutherland, Levi Davis and Timothy Washburn. 
Rufus M'Crackeii, Daniel M'Cracken, Thomas Godfrey, Linus 
Gunn, Henry Starks, Alanson Gunn, David Bowen, John Lamber- 
ton, lived on the road west. There was then less than one 
hundred acres of land cleared on the Buffalo road in the distance 
of six miles west of Batavia. 

I built a log house, covered it with elm bark — could not spare 
time to build a chimney; the floor was of slabs and hemlock 
boards. I immediately commenced building a saw mill and had it 
completed before the middle of October. That summer my wife 
did the cooking for family and hired men by an out of door fire, 
built up against stumps. The first winter, I attended my own 
saw mill, working in it from day light to dark, cutting my fire wood 
and foddering my stock by the light of a lantern. Before winter 
set in, I had built a stick chimney, laid a better floor in my house, 
plastered the cracks, and hired an acre of land cleared — just 



472 HISTORY OF THE 

enough to prevent the trees falHng upon my house. Wlien the 
mill was built I had it paid for, but to accomplish it, I had sold 
some pork and grain I had produced by working land upon shares 
in Bloomfield — in fact, every thing but my scanty household 
furniture. My saw mill proved a good investment, boards were 
much in demand at seven dollars and fifty cents per thousand; 
the new settlers stocked the mill with logs to be sawed on shares. 

In 1808 I built a machine shop, a carding and cloth dressing 
establishment. These were the first upon the Holland Purchase. 
On the 10th of June of that year, I carded a sack of wool, the 
first ever carded by a machine on the Holland Purchase. It 
belonged to George Lathrop of Bethany. In February, 1-809, I 
dressed a piece of full cloth for Thcophilus Crocker, the first ever 
dressed upon the Holland Purchase. There arc on my books, 
the names of customers, from as far south as Warsaw and Sheldon; 
from the east, as far as Stafford; from the west, to the Niagara 
river and lake Erie, including Chautauque county; from pretty 
much all of the settled portion of the Holland Purchase. I carded 
in the season of 1808, 3,029 lbs. of wool; the largest quantity for 
any one man, was 70 lbs. the smallest, 4 lbs. The lots averaged 
18 lbs. Allowing 3 lbs. to a sheep, the average number of sheep 
then kept by the new settlers, would be six; though it is presumed 
that the number was larger, as in those days, much of the wool 
was carded by hand. 

The machinists of the present day, may be glad to learn how 
I procured my machinery. I bought my hand shears of the 
Shakers at New Lebanon; my press plate at a furnace in Onon- 
daga; my screw and box at Canaan, Conn.; my dye kettle, press 
papers, &c. at Albany. My transportation bill, for these things, 
was over two hundred dollars. 

I built a grist mill in 1809; in 1817, a paper mill and distillery. 
I manufactured the first ream of paper west of the Genesee river. 

During all the period of my milling operations, I was clearing 
up the farm where I now reside. Coming into the woods as I 
have related, dependent almost wholly upon the labor of my hands, 
in the first twenty years, success had so far attended my efforts, 
that I had accumulated some fifteen or sixteen thousand dollars. 

The early pioneer miller, carder, cloth dresser, distiller, paper 
maker and farmer, is now in his 77th year, but little broken with 
age — his frame erect, his step firm — his whole appearance hardly 
indicating a life of early toil and hardships, such as is to be inferred 
from his history. The pioneer wife and mother, who was his 
helper in early years — she who patiently and courageously took 
up her abode in the rude cabin in the dense forest — who well ful- 
filled all the duties of life — died in 1842. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 473 

The first settler in all the southern portion of Erie county, was 
Joel Adams. He, in company with others, whose names will be 
found under the year 1804, T. 9, R. 6, took up land in what is now 
Aurora, in April of that year. None of them remained but 
Adams; he put up a shanty, and lived alone the first summer; his 
only neighbors, Joseph Sears and Roswell Turner, in Sheldon. In 
the fall bis family joined him. His sons were Enos, Ezekiel, 
Luther and Erasmus. In the winter of 1805, the two oldest boys 
brought a barrel of flour from Selleck's mill, at Attica, on a hand 
sled. Their provisions, the first year, were mostly brought from 
Genesee river, on their backs. The family raised a few crops in 
1805, the first in that region. 

The- prominent pioneer settler in Aurora, was Jabez Warren. 
He was, as will have been seen, a settler in Middlebury, in 1802; 
the first settler there. He built a log house and made a small 
improvement at what is now called Wright's Corners; raised crops 
there in 1 803, the first in that region. In moving in, he cut his own 
road from Le Roy to Middlebury. Sterling Stearns and his family 
came in with him. Stearns was a revolutionary soldier — volunteered 
in the war of 1812, and was killed at the battle of Queenston. 
Joseph Selleck, Frederick Gilbert, Israel M. Dewey, and Reuben 
Chamberlin, settled in Middlebury within the same year. 

Gen. William Warren, the son of the early pioneer, gives the 
author the following reminiscences: — 

My father's family, and those who came with them, camped out, 
while making their own road from Le Roy to Middlebury, 

In 1803, I took up land and commenced an improvement, on the 
iittlie Tonawanda, where the Wilson's afterwards settled. Judge 
Webster went to Warsaw, in 1803, and built a log house. 

In 1804, my father sold out in Middlebury, came to the site of 
the present village of Aurora, built a log house, and made a small 
opening in the forest. His hired men got their bread baked at 
Roswell Turner's in Sheldon. In March 1805, moved family in 
from Middlebury, on ox sled. There came in with him, Henry 
Godfrey, and Nathaniel Emerson. My father had cut the road 
from Transit line to lake Erie, for Holland Company, in 1804. He 
had also opened a road from x\ttica, three miles west, and then 
south, to Godfrey's hill. 

Note. — Tabor Earl broug^ht his wife in 1804, and, it may be claimed, was a settler 
cotemporary with old Mr. Adams. He, however, went down to BuiFalo and wintered, 
Mr. Adams being the only one that remained over the first year. Mrs. Earl was the 
pioneer female of all that region. 



474 HISTORY OF THE 

I sold out at Middlebury, and came here with my family, in 
1805. Our first school was in 1806 — kept by Mary Eddy, a sister 
of David Eddy. In 1808 we erected a framed school house. I 
opened the first tavern in Aurora, in a log house where upper 
village now is. The first merchants in town, were Adams and 
Hascall. The first birth in this region, was of a sister of mine, in 
1805; first funeral, that of a daughter of Humphrey Smith. My 
father raised the first wheat, and built the first frame house. 

In 1806, Major Phineas Stephens came in, and bought of my 
father the 200 acres of land, including the water power at the 
lower village. In that year he built a saw mill, and a grist mill 
in 1807; first south of BuflPalo road and west of Attica. Major 
Stevens, in the war of 1812, organized a corps called 'Silver 
Greys,' — volunteered under Smyth's proclamation, and died at 
Buffalo of the then prevailing fever. 

The author will arrest the narrative of the venerable pioneer 
ong enough to speak in brief terms, of a son of the early miller 
and enterprising and valuable settler he has introduced. Who in 
early days, did not know James Stevens'? The wild, the eccentric, 
the odd, the dare devil — and yet the kind good hearted — " Jim 
Stevens."' He was a wayward youth, and yet he was the general 
favorite in back woods life; ever present at rustic frolics; where 
there was fun, glee, hilarity, mischief, he was sure to be one of 
them, and a pretty prominent one too. The boys of the early 
pioneers generally had to work, as we all recollect — but work, and 
''Jim" had an early falling out and they never became reconciled. 
Was he set to a task in the field, he would bare headed and bare 
footed, wander away and find a congenial home among the Indians 
upon the Reservation, for weeks. There was a free and easy 
sort of life there that he liked; and he was a favorite with the 
Indians. He would be set to tend the mill, and the old gentleman's 
back turned, down went the gate, and the young miller would like- 
ly enough be found entertaining the boys who were waiting for 
their grists, with his fun and drollery. Approaching his majority, 
he submitted to the inconveniences of a hat and pair of shoes, and 
pushed out into the world, an adventurer. Just about the breaking 
out of the war of 1812, he was the teacher of a singing school on 
the Canada side of the Niagara river, head over heels in love with 
the daughter of a good loyalist. He was too much of a patriot to 
stay upon that side of the lines, and too good a lover to leave, 
without an arrangement for a Gretna Green affair. Coming upon 
this side^in a cold winter's night, accompanied by a friend, he crossed 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 475 

the Niagara in a canoe, and approaching the dwelling of his 
betrothed, managed to smuggle her aboard of his boat. Pushing 
out into the rapid water a little above Chippewa, in a violent snow 
storm, in the more than usual darkness it occasioned, the party 
were carried down with the strong current on the Canada side of 
Navy Island, and with all their exertions at the oars, were just 
enabled to strike the head of Porter's mill race. It was a narrow 
escape; marriage followed; and she, the object of his daring adven- 
ture, well repaid him for the risk of life. He had a military turn 
withal — took some little part in the war of 1812; and he may be re- 
membered within the last twenty five years, as the sometimes bare 

headed, bustling, clever and jovial Inspector of the Brigade 

of N. Y. state militia. 

Timothy Paine, an early settler in Aurora, was a brother of 
Gen. Edward Paine, the founder of Painsville, on the Reserve. 
Ephraim Woodruff was the early blacksmith in Aurora. 

Humphrey Smith, built the mills before the war, in 1809 or '10. 
Settlement was rapid in this region, for a few years previous to the 
war; but was pretty much suspended during its continuance. 

My father died in 1810, at the age of 47 years. My mother 
is living in Chautaque, with my brother Enos, aged 84 years. 

Gen. Warren, whose age the author neglected to ascertain, is 
yet vigorous — was during the last summer a constant laborer upon 
his farm. He is the father-in-law of A. M. Clapp, Esq., editor of 
the Buffalo Express. 

The venerable David Eddy, who yet survives — a resident at 
Potter's Corners, in Hamburgh — was in all that region a pioneer, 
second only to Didimus Kinney, who settled on the Eighteen Mile 
creek in the now town of Boston, a few months previous. He has 
obligingly given to the author his distinct recollections of early 
events: — 

I made a beginning in the woods in 1804 — came in with my 
brother Aaron, and brother-in-law Nathan Peters, and my sister 
Mary Eddy, to keep house for us, in September; built a log house. 
I brought along some cows, the wood's feed was abundant. The 
same fall, Amos Colvin and Ezekiel Smith came in with their fam- 
ilies. In 1805 a number of settlers came in — among them, Asa 
Sprague and Nathaniel Titus. 

I think my old pioneer friend William Warren is mistaken as to 
Phincas Stevens' saw-mill being the first one. In 1805 I was 
employed by Erastus Granger to build a saw-mill for the Indians 
on the reservation, on south branch of Buffalo creek. That mill 
furnished the first boards in all this region; before it was built our 



476 HISTORY OF THE 

log houses were built without boards. In 1807 I built a saw-mill 
on Smoke's creek. In building both these mills I had to send to 
Albany for cranks, saws, «fec., the transportation costing four and 
five dollars per hundred. David Reese, the Indian blacksmith in 
Buffalo did o-ur first work m that line. Our first resources for bread, 
after exhausting the little stock we brought in, was to buy strings 
of corn of the Indians, burn out a hollow place in a stump, suspend 
a pounder by a spring pole, and thus make of the corn a coarse 
meal. One stump, pounder and spring pole, would answer for 
several families. 

Before Phineas Stevens got his mill going, Daniel Smith, who 
lived on a small stream two miles south-west of Potter's Corners, 
built a rude mill. He put up a log building about eighteen feet 
square — had an over shot wheel — wood gearing throughout — no 
bolt, for there was no wheat to grind. The rock stones weighed 
about sixty pounds each. With this rude structure, he could grind 
five or six bushels of corn per day. He would run the corn through 
once, then separate the hulls with a sieve, then grind it again, and 
in this way make pretty good meal. 

In 1805, an old bear made her appearance in the neighborhood 
and made sad havoc wdth the pigs. We caught her by first secu- 
ring her cubs, and by that means enticing her into a steel trap. 
She was uncommonly large. We were not so much troubled here 
with wolves and bears, in an early day, as they were in other 
portions of the Purchase, on account of our proximity to the Indian 
hunters. Deer was very plenty, all this region was a reserve. 
The young Indian hunters were prohibited by an edict of a council 
from hunting deer within a given number of miles from their village, 
in order to give the old irtcn a chance. Trout used to be abundant 
in the small streams. 

The Indians were always friendly, good neighbors; our first 
seeds were obtained from them; they seemed pleased to have white 
neighbors, and there used to be much traffick between them and 
the new settlers. Wiien I first came to this region, Farmers 
Brother, Young King, Big Kettle, Jack Berry, Stephenson, Pollard, 
(who was half French,) were the influential ones among them. 
Red Jacket, so far as I have observed, was not generally popular 
with his own people; with all his talent, he ha4 some bad traits of 
character, and was too intemperate to be a safe counsellor. 

The Wm. Johnston, who was the British interpreter, when the 
settlement of the Holland Purchase commenced, had a son whose 
mother was a Seneca Squaw. He was educated; for many years 
a chief and interpreter. He married a daughter of Judge Barker 
on the lake shore; died a short time previous to the war. 

Nathaniel Titus was the first tavern keeper on the lake shore; 
commenced there as early as 1805; Elisha Enos succeeded him; 

Smith succeeded Enos. Zenas Barker bought the property 

and commenced keeping th-e tavern, I think during the war. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 477 

At the mouth of the Eighteen, Joel Harvey commenced keeping 
a tavern in 1806. 

Friends' meeting was first organized in 1806; built a meeting 
house in 1807; had monthly meetings in 1808; quarterly, in 1816. 
The first settlers hei'e were mostly Friends. 

A Presbyterian 'church was built at Abbott's Corners, after the 
war; that place took its name from Seth Abbott, who built a large 
tavern house there after the war. White's Corners, took its name 
from an early settler there who kept a public house. 

We naa a schooi m this neighborhood as early as 1806, in a log 
school house, where Friends' meeting house now stands; Henry 
Hibbard was the first teacher. Ezekiel Smith built the first framed 
house, and I built the first framed barn. I set out the first orchard, 
in 1808. The first season I came in, I broke into heavy timbered 
land, commenced by first building fires to burn the dry leaves, and 
clearing away the underbrush. I then chopped down the trees, 
cut, piled, and burned the tops, leaving the bodies upon the ground; 
planted corn and pumpkins and had a crop of near 1000 bushels ot 
corn, which proved very useful to the new settlers. 

In some of the earliest years, a young man by the name of 
John .Sumner, took up a lot in this neighborhood; built a house; was 
enterprising and industrious; kept bachelor's hall. After he had 
been here two or three years, doing well, apparently, he was 
missed, search was made for him for a long time, and finally aban- 
doned. Some time afterwards, his body was found on the banks of 
Rush creek, in a secluded place, where he had committed suicide. 
He was buried by his log cabin. This was the first death in this 
region, except that of a small child of Daniel Smith. We after- 
wards got information that the young man had left Massachusetts 
in consequence of a disappointment in a love aftair. 

In early times there was an Indian living upon the reservation, 
who I think was 115 years old. He was a christian in all his 
sentiments; had been a peace-maker through life. I will give you 
the benefit of a tradition he related to me. He said that a nation 
called the Eries once inhabited all this region; that they were a 
powerful, warlike nation, dreaded and feared by all other nations. 
They were finally warred upon, and their country conquered by 
the Senecas. 

Fish, caught in the lake, was a great help to the new settlers. 
In the absence of that resource for food, many must have abandoned 
their new homes in the woods. 

Samuel and Benjamin Tubbs, were the picJneer settlers in Eden 
at the place called Tubb's Hollow, at first, now Eden Valley. 
There followed soon after, Joseph Thorn, Hill, David Pound. 

Jacob Taylor was first settler of Collins; he was agent of 
Friends' Indian Mission. 

Town of Boston was first settled by Didimus Kinney, as has 
been observed, in 1805. Charles and Oliver Johnson followed soon 



478 HISTORY OF THE 

after, settling on the plains. There was an open spot, pretty 
much clear of timber; there was an ancient fort there; many 
relics of ancient occupancy in the neighborhood. There was found 
in 1807, in a ravine, 500 lbs. of old French axes; the iron was 
excellent, and was much needed by the new settlers. Axes and 
brass kettles were found all over this region. A brass kettle was 
found that would hold sixteen quarts, in a situation where it had 
kept dry; it was in a good state of preservation. 

Mr. Eddy is now 70 years of age, his health and constitution 
tolerably good, though laboring under the effects of a fractured 
limb; his wife died in 1844. He was in an early day, an agent of 
Mr. Ellicott; assisted in locating settlers, and from time to time 
reported to him how the settlers were getting on with their im- 
provements. There is now living in Hamburg, beside him, of the 
earliest settlers, Asa Sprague. 

The following reminiscences of the primitive settlement of 
Warsaw, and its neighborhood, were derived from Messrs. Daniel 
Knapp and Josiah Hovey: — 

The Pioneer settler of Warsaw, as has been mentioned by Gen. 
Warren, was Elizur Webster, Esq. [For names of early settlers, 
see T. 9, R. 1.] 

Judge Webster opened a tavern soon after he came in, and soon 
after Nehemiah Fargo opened a house of public entertainment. 
Judge Webster built a saw mill in 1804, and Joseph Manley built 
a grist mill in 1806, with one run of stones, which he soon after sold 
to Solomon Morris. Previous to the erection of Webster's saw 
mill, the log dweUings of the settlers were built without boards. 

Judge Webster raised the first crops. He set out a large orchard 
in an early day. It is presumed that he erected the first cider mill 
upon the purchase; his first cider was sold for $7 per barrel.* 
The early settlers were supplied with apple trees from the nursery 
planted by Josiah Hovey. 

Seymour Ensign erected the first carding and cloth dressing 
establishment at Warsaw. He was succeeded by Simeon R. 
Glazier, and David Seymour. Col. Elkanah Day, father of Judge 
Day of Olean, was the first blacksmith. 

In 1806, there was no settler on road from Warsaw to Leicester. 
The road was opened in that year. The first settlers on the road 
were Woodward, at Perry Centre. He opened a tavern, was 

* Judge Webster's orchard was early and widely known. In all the earliest years, 
before that began to bear, apples and cider were brought from over the river. The 
arrival of a barrel of cider and a few bushels of apples, at the primitive log taverns, 
was no ordinary event; it would generally be the occasion of a sleigh ride and a froHc. 
Apples were often sold at two shillings per dozen, and cider at the same price per 
quart. A basket of champaign, is not now enjoyed with the zest and relish that a 
barrel of cider was in those days. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 479 

succeeded by Beebe. Elisha and Amos Smith, on inlet of 

Silver Lake; Elisha opened a tavern. The Atw^oods came in as 
early as 1807 or '8. 

A Presbyterian church was organized at Warsaw in 1807— a 
fine church, the best then upon the Purchase, was erected in 1817. 
Father Spencer officiated at the formation of the church. 

Dr. Chauncey L. Sheldon, was the first physician. Previous to 
his coming in Dr. Eastman of Attica, and Dr. Sill of Geneseo, 
were occasionally sent for. In many cases of child birth, the 
attendance of a physician had to be dispensed with; old Mrs. 
Palmer used to be toated about on an ox-sled to supply the place 
of a physician. 

The first stock of goods brought to Warsaw, was by Gen. 
Almond Stevens. The goods were furnished by Dixon, the early 
merchant in Richmond, Ontario Co. 

The surviving early residents of Warsaw and its neighbor- 
hood, are Josiah Hovey and wife, Simeon Hovey and wife, Lyman 
Morris, Shubel Morris, David Fargo, Silas C. Fargo and wife, 
Amos Kinney and wife, Ezra Walker, Mrs. Young, wife of A. W. 
Young, (author of Science of Government, and other school books.) 
Mrs. Young is a daughter of Judge Webster, and was the first 
born in town. John Munger and wife, Daniel Knapp, Mrs. 
Norton, (wife of Col. E. Norton, and daughter of Judge Webster.) 
Harry, a son of Simeon Hovey, the first male child born in town. 
A son of Deacon Walker, an early and prominent settler, is a 
Presbyterian clergyman, and another son is a resident and ex-mayor 
of Baton Rouge. 

Judge Webster the early pioneer of Warsaw, sold out his fine 
farm during the era of speculation, (1837 or '8,) for a high price, 
and emigrated to Ripley, Chautaque Co. where he now resides. 
He is 80 years old, but yet vigorous in mind, and physical con- 
stitution. 

John Wilder, Esq. of Warsaw, was an early pioneer, locating at 
Attica, in 1806. The author, as in other instances, will principally 
give his narrative as he related it: — 

I came in with another young man, Asa Johnson. We were 
both millwrights. Our first work was the putting in of the running 
geers to a saw mill that Zera Phelps was building. Phelps then 
owned the land now occupied by Attica village, principally. A 
grist mill had been put up a year before, by John Munger, and 
purchased by Phelps. We overhauled it and put in new running 
geers. In 1806, Wm. Vary, who was himself a millwright, had 
put up a saw mill at what is now called Varysburgh. Johnson 
and myself put him up a small grist mill — one run of rock stones.* 

* This v/as the first mill, io all the region south of Attica. Well does the author 
remember the mill, the miller, the miller's wife, and the miller's boys. The old gentle- 



480 HISTORY OF THE If 

In July 1807, myself and Johnson, and my brother Joseph 
Wilder, bought out Zera Phelps at Attica. The grist mill was 
burned in 1809 with 1000 bushels of grain. In that year we built 
a new grist mill and saw mill. 

The first clothing and carding establishment was erected at 
Attica by two brothers, named Fuller. Hoisington and Esquire 
Wright were the early blacksmiths at Attica. 

The first merchant establishment in Attica was a stock of goods 
sent from Batavia by Trumbull Gary, Esq., in 1809; they were put 
up in a part of my dwelling house. Gains B. Rich, Esq., now of 
Buffalo, established himself in Attica as a merchant, in 1811. 
Myself and my brother Joseph, retained the mills in Attica until 
1818, when we sold out to Parmenio Adams and John Peabody. 
Peabody was an early tavern keeper in Attica, commencing there 
as early as 1811. His widow is now a resident of the city of 
Buffalo. I erected a distillery in Attica in 1811. 

In 1809, my brother Joseph built a grist mill in Hume for Ehsha 
Mills, the first in all that region; a saw mill had been erected a 
year or two before. In 1810 I built a grist mill for Judge Griffin 
in Pike. In 1811, myself and brother built a grist mill in Wales 
for Isaac Hall. In 1810 we built a grist mill for Judge Wilson, 
where Linden village now is, in Bethany. In the same year, a 
grist mill for Elder Brown, on the little Tonewanda, three miles 
from Alexander, in the town of Bethany. 

We held our first singing schools in Attica, in a hollow button- 
wood ti'ee. It was felled and a section about thirty feet long cut 
off. The hollow was large enough for a man of ordinary height to 
walk upright through it. Benches were made in it; holes cut to 
admit the light, and it answered a good purpose; the voices of the 
young folks would sound in it as they would in an arched room. 

The narrator of these early events, who has witnessed almost 
the entire progress of settlement upon the Holland Purchase, is 
now but sixty-one years of age — young enough and vigorous enough 
to assist in the settlement of another new country. He has been 
deputy sheriff and sheriff of Genesee county; in the war of 1812, 
he was first sergeant in Capt. Seth Gates' company of Grenadiers. 
He was made a prisoner at the battle of Queenston. His brother 

man was enterprising, persevering, as any one that ever penetrated that rough, wild 
region; droll and eccentric. Who of the early mill boys of all that region, does not 
remember the old man, his "by Gosh," and "by Golden," the rusty horse shoes 
nailed upon his mill wheel to keep off the witches? He was an early magistrate; many 
are the anecdotes told of the early marriages he performed. In 1807, he got injured by 
the fall of a tree; a splinter striking him in the forehead. When the wound was 
healed, there was a depression large enough to admit the half of an ordinarj- hen's egg. 
Although it was attended with a partial loss of faculties, he survived many years. 
With all of his eccentricities, he was in early times, a good helper in the work of set- 
tlement and improvement; possessed of many excellent qualities. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 481 

Joseph, was an early magistrate in Attica; held various military 
offices up to the grade of colonel. He died in 1836. 

The town of Sheldon, Townships 9, Ranges 3 and 4, was pur- 
chased of Holland Company, in 1803, by Oliver Phelps and Lemuel 
Chipman. Judge Chipman, with his brother Silas, it will have been 
seen, were settlers in Pittstown, Ontario county, as early as 1794. 
They were both physicians from Vermont; brothers of the Hon. 
Nathaniel Chipman of Middlebury. Lemuel Chipman had been a 
surgeon in the army of the Revolution. The two brothers were 
some of the best of the early pioneer stock. Lemuel was for a long 
period one of the prominent men of Western New York; was a 
member of the legislature, and one of the Judges of Ontario county. 
He died in Sheldon, ten or twelve years since. His sons were, 
Fitch, Lemuel, and Samuel; the last of whom is well known as an 
early laborer in the temperance cause. Mrs. Guy H. Salisbury of 
Buffalo, is a daughter of Lemuel. Fitch Chipman, formerly a 
member of the Legislature from Genesee, whose wife was of the 
widely known family of Spaffords of Vermont, is still a resident of 
Sheldon. Dr. Silas Chipman emigrated to Michigan; was one of 
the earliest settlers at Pontiac. 

The purchase of Phelps and Chipman having been perfected, in 
the summer of 1803, Elijah Warner, a surveyor, was employed 
to survey the land into farm lots. His assistants were, Roswell 
Turner, (father of the author.) Joseph Sears, and Tabor Earl. 
While out, a supply of provisions failed to reach them, and the 
party were five days without food, except the fish that they caught, 
wild berries, and roots. Attempting to make their way out of the 
woods, when nearly exhausted — some of them in fact unable to 
proceed any farther — they were met by Judge Chipman with a 
plentiful supply of provisions. 

Roswell Turner, having been appointed the agent of Phelps and 
Chipman, moved upon their land in the month of March, 1804; 
thus becoming the pioneer settler in all the region now constituting 
the northwestern portion of Wyoming and southern portion of Erie 
counties. The first winter was one of severe trials and hardships; 
the snow was deep, and he had sixteen h6ad of cattle to winter, 
principally upon browse. At times the deep snow would prevent, 
cattle getting into the woods, and the browse would have to be cut 
and carried to them in bags. Provisions, and some grain for cattle, 
had to be brought in from Honeove and the Genesee river. Upon 
31 



482 HISTORY OF THE 

one occasion, during the winter, he started from the Genesee river 
with a load upon an ox sled, and went hack to stay the first and 
second nights. Progressing as far as he could through the deep 
snow, breaking his road as he went along, when night came he 
would go back with his oxen, leaving his load, and return in the 
morning and renew his slow journey. The snow was two and a 
half and three feet deep, and no track before him. He was five 
days making the journey from Genesee river to Sheldon — distance 
about twenty-five miles. In the winter previous to this, he was 
preceding his family with a Ipad of provisions, and in fording Allan's 
creek below the present village of Warsaw, had his feet badly 
frozen. He found his way to the shanty of the early pioneer 
Morris, and eventually had to be taken back to Honeoye on his 
ox sled. 

There came in, the first winter, Joseph Sears and family; they 
did not, however, become actual settlers. Robert Carr and David 
Hoard were the next settlers, or rather the first named; Hoard 
died while he was out looking at the country; his was the first 
death and funeral upon Phelps and Chipman's Purchase. His 
family came in and occupied the land he had selected. In 1806, 
the settlers in Sheldon, beside those named, were Deacon Seth 
Gates, Lemuel Castle, Levi Street, Marvin Brace, Stephen Welton, 
and Orange Brace. In 1805 and '6, emigration was brisk in that 
quarter; settlers were pushing on to Willink, Hamburgh and Eigh- 
teen Mile Creek. Roswell Turner soon opened a log cabin house 
of entertainment for the emigrants. It is remembered that, in 
addition to the stock of provisions he carried in with him, he 
brought from over the river, the first two winters after, twenty 
loads of provisions, principally for the supply of new settlers. 
His house was the home of the earliest class of pioneers. Young 
men would push on beyond him, build shanties, keep bachelors' hall, 
and when they were tired of the woods, make a visit to "the 
settlement;" get their clothes mended, perhaps, or their bread 
baked. The humble log house that he erected upon the four 
corners — now called North Sheldon — is a land-mark in the recol- 
lections of the early settlers of Wyoming, south part of Erie, and 
a part of Cattaragus and Chautauque. With the exception of a 
child of Joseph Sears, who is mentioned as having remained but a 
short time in Sheldon; a son of Roswell Turner, (Chipman Phelps 
Turner, of Black Rock, Erie county,) was the first born in all the 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 483 

western portion of Wyoming county. His name was derived from 
the land owners. Another son of his — the late Judge Horace S. 
Turner, of Aurora, Erie County, — had been, at the period of his 
death, longer a resident of that portion of the Purchase named in 
connection with the advent of his father, than any male survivor. 
Mrs. Farnum, of Bennington, a daughter of Roswell Turner, is 
now the oldest resident of the territory named. 

The early pioneer settler died in 1809. 

Marked, as were hundreds of the Pioneer advents upon the 
Holland Purchase, with extraordinary privations and endurances, 
perhaps there were none more so than his. It is a wild, rough 
region, ev^en now. The reader who may have passed over it, can 
realize in some degree what it must have been when penetrated by 
the first settlers. 

The first school in Sheldon, was in a log house, erected by 
Roswell Turner, where Elihu Parson's tavern now" stands; the 
first religious meetings were held at the house of Roswell Turner; - 
the first ministei's who were in that region, were Elders Butler 
and Throop, and father Spencer. The first physician in Sheldon, 
was John Rolph, after him Benjamin Potter (father of Dr. Potter 
of Colesville, and Dr. Potter of Varysburgh.) Dr. Ziba Hamilton 
came in, in 1809. He is now nearly 80 years old, and practising 
yet, occasionally. He is presumed to be the oldest living resident 
physician upon the Holland Purchase; his has been a long life, and 
one of more than ordinary usefulness. For forty years, he has 
been in one location, the kind and skilful physician, and the useful 
citizen. 

Who of the early residents, does not remember Levi Street I 
Commencing at an early period, he carried the mail on the route 
from Canandaigua through Gencseo, Warsaw and Sheldon, to lake 
Erie. He was the carrier through all that region, for many 
years, of the Ontario Repository, Ontario Messenger, and Moscow 
Advertiser. He removed to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he met the 
singular fate of death from hydrophobia, caused by the bite of 
a horse. 

Deacon Seth Gates, (father of Hon. Seth M. Gates of Warsaw,) 
it will be observed, was an early settler. He assisted prominently 
in the organization of the first church in Sheldon, and was an 
exemplary and useful citizen. He died a few years since in 
Warsaw, where his aged widow resides witli her childa-en. Some 



484 HISTORY OF THE 

notice of the family of Orange Brace, will be found in connection 
with the war of 1812. The early physician, Dr. Rolph, was a 
highly educated man, but singular and eccentric. He chose a 
residence where he and his family were in a great measure 
excluded from the little society there was in early times. His 
wife was the sister of the poet Selleck Osborn. 

In addition to the early pioneer settlers of Sheldon, already 
named, there were Joshua Gates, Lodowick Thomas, Benjamin 
.Toslyn, the Godfreys, Grinnel, Uriah Persons and his sons, Uriah, 
David, Joseph, John, William, Robert, Charles, Hiram, Henry, 
Elihu, and two younger ones — twelve, all told; Hubbard Fitch, 

Simeon Hoard, the Weltons, Joel Harris, Edward Brace, 

Feagles, Woodruff, Robert Waters, Frink, Sher- 
mans, Jared and Roswell Barber, John Sutherland, and a few 
others whose names are not recollected. 

But few of the old inhabitants of vSheldon are left there. Em- 
igration and death, have perhaps thinned their ranks in a greater 
degree, than in any other early settlement upon the Purchase. 
Over one half of the whole town, has been purchased within a few 
years by foreign emigrants; principally Germans. 

At an early period, bears, wolves, wild-cats and foxes, preyed 
upon the sheep, hogs and fowls of the new settlers. Sheep in 
all cases, had to be folded nights. There used to be a large 
bounty for wolves: some of the new settlers made a profitable 
business of trapping them. In cold winters, when snow was deep, 
the wolves would get hungry and ravenous. There were seve- 
ral instances of their obliging men to climb trees to avoid them. 
Bears would come and take hogs within a few rods of the 
dwellings. Deer were abundant. The hills g,nd valleys of Wyo- 
ming, were favorite camping and hunting grounds for the Indians 
(long after white settlement commenced. In periods of deep snows 
and crusts, the deer were easily taken; hundreds were knocked 
in head, — for several winters, for their pelts alone, the meat 
being too poor to eat; or if not too poor, the meat would be so 
flavored with hemlock, (the principal food of the deer in times of 
deep snow,) as to be unpalatable. In early times, there would 
once in a while, an elk stray into the neighborhood, from the 
regions of the Allegany. The trapping of martin, was very com- 
mon with the yoimg men in winters. Trout were plenty in all 
'he streams. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 485 

Chauncey Loomis was the founder of settlement in Bennington. 
In 1805, he purchased for himself, his mother, his brother-in-law P. 
Case, his brother Justin, and Jonah Barber, T. 10, Ranges 3 and 4. 
Bennington was previous to 1818, included in Sheldon; the family 
name of old Mrs. Loomis, was Sheldon. Chauncey Loomis came 
on with his mother in July, 1806. There came with him beside, 
Pelatiah Case, Ezra Ludden, Aaron and Adolphus Clapp, with their 
families; Joseph Farnum, George Loomis, Nathan Clapp. Justin 
Loomis had come in the winter previous, built a log house and 
kept bachelor's hall. This was the first tenement erected in Ben- 
nington. Several log houses were erected in the summer of 1807. 
In that year, Chauncey Loomis erected a saw mill. It w^as built 
by Ezekiel Hall, the afterwards widely known landlord — now the 
keeper of the Eagle tavern, Batavia. In raising a barn for Chaun- 
cey Loomis, the first summer, Mr. Hall remembers that it took all 
the able men in a circuit of ten miles, which included of course, 
the then considerable settlement in what is now Sheldon. In 1808 
and '9, Roger Rowley, George Hoskins, Joab Rockwell, Joseph 
and Walter Burnham, came into Loomis' settlement. Jonah 
Barber, who was interested in the land purchase, came on and pre- 
pared to erect a log house; returned to Connecticut, and in com- 
ing again into the country, was taken sick and died in Bloomfield. 

Chauncey Loomis, for Holland Company, in 1808, cut out the 
road from Bennington through Indian Reservation, coming out 
upon Willink road a half mile above Red Jacket's wigwam. The 
first team that passed through on that road was a wagon and three 
yoke of oxen, going to Buffalo for salt. It was three days in get- 
ting to Buffalo. The teamsters were Lester Brace, (late sheriff" 
of Erie county,) Joseph Farnum and Levi Street. The Allegany 
road from Bennington to Sheldon was cut out in 1807; next year, 
was continued north to South Buffalo road. In 1808 a road was 
opened from Bennington to Attica, 

The first physician in Bennington was Salmon King; the next, 
Ira Cross. The first school was organized in 1810; Webster 
Parsons, Griswold Palmer, George Loomis, Avis Stickncy, Seth 
Pomeroy, Rhodema Durgee and AflTa Case, were early teachers. 
The Baptist church in Bennington was the second church organized^ 
upon the Purchase; old Mrs. Loomis made it a donation of one 
thousand dollars. Elder Herrick was the first settled minister in. 
Bennington. The first born in town was a daughter of AdolpH'.^s 



486 HISTORY OF THE 

Clapp; the first death, that of an infant daughter of Joseph Farnum. 
The first religious meeting held in Bennington was in the fall of 
1807 — Elder Peter B. Root officiating. The first merchants in 
town, were Joseph Farnum and Roswell King. Joseph Farnum 
opened the first tavern. 

In 1810, Chauncey Loomis married Rachel Evans, a niece of 
Joseph Ellicott. He was elected a State Senator, and died in 
Albany in 1817, leaving no children. Mrs. Loomis became a resi- 
dent of Buffalo, where she died a few years since, lamented at least 
by her old backwoods neighbors, who remembered her many 
amiable qualities. Justin Loomis, who married a daughter of Dr. 
Rolph, of Sheldon, is still living, but has been partially insane for 
many years. 



THE LOST BOY. 



Among the early events, which will long be remembered, in the 
region of which we have been speaking, was that of the Lost Boy. 
David Tolles was a settler on the road between Loomis' settlement 
and Attica as early as 1806. In July of that year, he had a small 
patch cleared and sowed to oats, not fenced; the cattle would come 
out of the woods, and get upon the oat field. A boy, eight or nine 
years old, a son of Mr. Tolles, was set to watch and keep them off. 
Just before sun set, he drove the cattle back into the woods, and 
did not return. That night some few of the immediate neighbors 
searched for him, and the next day the alarm was spread through- 
out the whole country. None but those who have witnessed the 
lively sympathies that exist among backwoods pioneers, can imagine 
the prompt gathering and faithful search that commenced. The 
new settlers came in from all directions, organized in companies, 
and scoured the wilderness. The third day, a party of Indians 
came from the Buffalo Reservation, and joined in the search. The 
force collected had to be supplied with provisions; the settlers fur- 
nished them to the extent of their means; Mr. Ellicott sent a load 
from Batavia; and Jabez Warren, who had provisions stored at 
Roswell Turners, in Sheldon, ordered them to be served out in 
rations. The search was continued for a week by the whites; the 
Indians were hired to continue it longer. But it was all unavailing; 
fhc fate of the Lost Boy is unknown to this day. 

The second day of the search one party found his tracks; the 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 487 

third day, another party found where he had gathered hemlock 
bows, and slept; on the fourth day, a party discovered where he 
had been in a creek, washing some roots. His foot prints upon 
the rocks were so recent that the water was not dried off; the 
water of the running stream was yet riled. He had probably 
fled at the approach of the party. This was the last trace of him 
discovered. 

How much greater the affliction to the parents, than if they 
could have known the fate of their child! Long years followed 
of hopes revived from time to time, only to be crushed. The 
father became a wanderer in search of the Lost Boy. Rumors, 
cruel to him, would get afloat, that a wild boy had been found in 
Pennsylvania, or perhaps Ohio; and he would start out on foot, on 
a pilgrimage of paternal affection. Returning, while attempting to 
be reconciled to the bereavement, a rumor would reach him, per- 
haps that his child was among some of the Western Indians; and 
another long journey would be made. 

There are few old settlers who do not remember the Lost Boy, 
and the intense excitement it created throughout the then thinly 
settled region. 



James M'Kain, the father of James M'Kain, Jr. of Lockport, 
was a resident of Batavia as early as 1802. In 1804 he opened 
the first tavern upon the present site of the American. The old 
gentleman died in Lockport a few years since. The son relates 
many adventures of early days; especially descriptive of the 
woods road he used to travel between Ganson's and Batavia, 
bringing in provisions from Canandaigua on horse back. In the 
early years the woods road could only be traveled on foot and 
horse back, when there was no snow upon the ground; the trans- 
portation was mostly done by sleighing. 

Capt. John Ganson came from Bennington, Vermont, and settled 
on the Genesee river in the year 1790 or '91. He had accompanied 
Sullivan's expedition. His first location was on the river, two miles 
below Avon; his title there proving bad, he purchased land on the 
Canandaigua road, four miles east of Avon. In the year 1798, he 
pushed on into the wilderness, and located a little east of Allan's 
creek, (LeRoy.) becoming the well known pioneer tavern-keeper 
west of the Genesee river. Charles Wilbur had preceded him, and 
built a small framed house. He bought him out. 



488 HISTORY OF THE 

Mrs. Warren, (formerly Mrs. Forsyth,) now residing on Ridge 
road, in Cambria, is a daughter of Capt. Ganson. Few have seen 
more of pioneer life — and that, principally, upon the Holland 
Purchase. She has obligingly given the author some interesting 
reminiscences of early times: — 

Soon after my father had come on west of the river, and opened 
a public house, other settlers began to come in. There was nothing 
on the road to Batavia, until Mr. EUicott's surveyors made their 
head quarters at Stafford. The Indians w-ere frequent visitors at 
my fathers. 1 used to see them often, the chiefs, Hot Bread, Jack 
Berry, Red Jacket, and Little Beard. Sometimes the Indians were 
turbulent; they would become a terror to the new settlers. My 
father was a stout athletic man; had great influence over them; 
would quell them in their worst drunken frolics. 

In 1802, having become the wife of John Forsyth, (a brother of 
Wm. Forsyth, the well known landlord of the Pavilion, at Niagara 
Falls,) we settled five miles west of Batavia, near Dunham's grove. 
Remaining there until 1807, we moved upon the spot where I now 
reside. When we came here, there were but three or four settlers 
between Dunham's grove and Lockport. East, there was no 
settler till we passed the Eleven Mile woods. Our nearest 
neighbor west, was Joseph Hewett, at Howell's creek. 

In 1808, the Ridge road was laid out by General Rhea, Elias 
Ransom, and Charles Harford. I remember well the arrival of the 
surveyors; their delight at finding a bed to sleep in, and something 
to eat that was cooked by a female. Previous to this there had 
been nothing but an Indian path through the low grounds, west of 
Wright's Corners. 

We brought in a few sheep with us, I think they were the only 
ones in the neighborhood; they became the especial object of the 
wolves. Coming out of the Wilson swamp nights, their howling 
would be terrific. Two years after we came in, I was alone with 
my then small children one day, when 1 heard the sheep bleating 
and running, and went out to see what the matter was. A large 
wolf had badly wounded a sheep. As I approached him he left 
the sheep and walked off" snarling at me as if reluctant to quit his 
prey. I went for my nearest neighbor, Mr. Stoughton to get him 
to come and dress the sheep. It was three fourths of a mile 
through the woods. On my way a large grey fox crossed the 
road ahead of me. Returning with my neighbor, a large bear 
slowly crossed the road in sight of us. I could tell many stories 
of wild beasts in this region; but I think I never saw as much of 
them in any one day, before or since. We had no way to keep 
fowls, but to secure them well in their roosting places. The first 
settlers found it very difficult to keep hogs; the bears would even 
come out of the woods and take them by daylight. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 489 

Asahel Sage, Esq. of Lewiston, a surviving early settler, gave 
the author the benefit of his recollections of early times: — 

I moved upon the farm in Lewiston, where I now reside in 1807. 

John Gould, Bragbill, Smith, were then settled on 

first tier of lots back of mile strip; no other settler farther east 
upon the mountain. Sanders, Doty, Goodwin, Webster, Hawley, 
were the pioneer settlers in Sander's settlement. Jarius Rose, 

De Foe, Springsteen, the Carneys, went in west of Pekin 

after the war. The Reynolds and Carneys were the first settlers 
at Pekin. Beamer, Wilson, Bridge, Dr. Orton, Bliss, Earls, were 
among the earUest settlers between ridge and mountain, west of 
Scott's. 

From some old store bills, that Col. Sage has preserved, the 
author has extracted some prices. In 1811, trading at a store in 
Lewiston, he is charged 5s. 6d. for cotton shirting; for " Hum 
Hum," 3s. 9d. per yard; In 1813, he is charged for muslin, 5s. per 
yard; for a pound of tea, 12s.; for coffbe, 3s. per lb.; for sugar, 
the same; for a hat $8,00; for a plug of tobacco, 2s.; for nails, 2s. 
per lb. ; for powder, 8s. per lb. 

The reader will have observed that the narrative of Judge 
Porter was arrested about the period of his becoming a resident of 
the Holland Purchase, in 1806. He gave the author many remm- 
iscences of early times in this region; many of them have already 
been included in portions of the work derived from other sources. 
From memorandums taken m conversation with him the following 
reminiscences are principally derived: — 

The Judge moved from Canandaigua to the Falls, in June of the 
year already named. After the fashion of emigrants in those 
days, he was his own teamster; coming to his new home with 
whip and reins in hand, his family, consisting then of his wife and 
three sons, constituting his freight. He was four days making the 
journey; and that in favorable weather. The Portage company, 
consisting of himself, his brother Peter B. Porter, Benjamin 
Barton, Jr. and Joseph Annin, had in February, of the year 
previous, leased of the State, the Portage and Stedman Farm at 
Schlosser;* and at the same time, the company had bought of the 
State, lots 1, 2, 3, and 4, of Mile Strip, which included the Falls 
on the American side, extending three fourths of a mile below 



* The lease was for the term of twelve years; on its expiration in 1816, it was 
extended four years, in consideration of the interruption that had been occasioned by 
the war. 



490 HISTORY OF THE 

them, and half a mile above. They had erected a saw mill the 
same year of the purchase. 

Judge Porter took possession of the Stedman house, for his 
residence. It was a substantial framed building; besides this, there 
were at Schlosser, several dilapidated log buildings. All that was 
left of the old English fort, were the entrenchments; several 
pickets, and the ruins of some framed and log buildings that had 
been used as barracks. During English occupancy, Stedman had 
built a saw mill on the rapids, where a woolen factory now stands.^ 
At Schlosser there was an old apple orchard, a hundred trees or 
more, and several peach, pear, and plum trees. 

In 1806, and up to the period of the war, water fowl were 
abundant at the Falls. Large flocks of geese and swans would 
make their appearance generally in September, and remain until 
the fore part of winter. But few came during or after the war. 
It is supposed that the firing of cannon and muskets, scared them 
away. The eagle used to nest about the Falls in early years of 
settlement. The Judge accounts for the fact that ducks often 
go over the Falls, (which has had so many different versions,) in 
this way: — In still dark nights, sitting upon the water in the wake 
of Grass Island, they fall asleep, and float into the rapid water, 
where they cannot rise upon the wing. Sometimes they have 
encountered this fate in large numbers. After being disabled by 
the descent over the Falls, they are easily taken below. 

The rattle snake existed in great numbers at the Falls in an early 
day. At the whirlpool was a large den of them; they were of 
uncommon size. Above the Falls, between Sclosser and Gill creek, 
there used to be large colonies of an entire different species; they 
were small, not exceeding twelve or sixteen inches in length. It is 
a singlar fact, that the rattle snake was never known to approach 
Niagara Falls, within a distance of from a half to three-fourths of 
a mile.f They were so numerous at one time, at their principal 
den below the Falls, that the Tuscarora Indians could not safely 



* There was a year or two since, if there is not now, a stick of oak timber, that was 
taken from the ruins of this mill perfectly sound. The mill it is supposed, was built 
previous to 1763. When Judge Porter went to Schlosser, there were in a fence some 
chestnut rails that then appeared very old. The same rails are now in his fences 
there, perfectly sound. 

t The Judge attributes this to the trembling of the earth for that distance. Open a 
penknife, stick the point into a tree near the Falls, and a tremulous motion of the handle 
will be observed. 



i 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 491 

occupy a favorite fishing ground there. They extirpated them in 
great numbers, by setting fire to the dry leaves — burning over the 
steep bank, about the time they were crawling out for their summer 
excursions. On another occasion, as related by Messrs. Fairbanks 
and Gould, the white inhabitants collected and made war upon 
them; over five hundred were destoyed in one day. In this way, 
with the help of the hogs, that would hunt and devour them, they 
were gradually extirpated. 

Judge Porter names some facts in connexion with the rattle snake 
that may be interesting to naturalists: — They never strike except 
in self-defence; they will always first endeavor to retreat. He has 
taken the head off of one, opened the jaws with a stick, and observed 
a drop of fluid, resembling milk and water, exuding from each fang. 
It seemed to be the effort of the head to do its work of mischief 
after it was separated from the body. The body, after the head is 
off", when touched, will coil and make an impotent attempt to strike. 

In the first few years after Judge Porter went to the Falls, the 
visitors were but few; thei'e was no tavern upon this side. Upon 
the opposite side, William Forsyth had opened a house. The visit- 
ing upon this side, to any considerable extent, commenced with the 
completion of the bridge to Goat Island. 

In the spring of 1807 — all Niagara being in the town of Buffalo 
— Judge Porter and Robert Lee, Esq. attended town meeting at 
Buffalo, to get some path masters elected. 

In 1806, the inhabitants along the frontier, in Niagara, were, 
besides Judge Porter at Schlosser, Jesse Ware, Wm. Miller, Stephen 
Hopkins, William Howell, Joshua Fairbanks, Philemon Baldwin, 
Joseph Howell, Isaac Colt, Erastus Parks, James Murray, between 
Falls and Lewiston; Isaac Swain lived on military road. At Lew- 
iston there were, Capt. Lemuel Cook, Thomas Hustler, John Beach, 
Solomon Gillett. Between Falls and Black Rock, there was only 
" Big Smith," at Cayuga creek. 

In 1806, the Portage Company built a mill of two run of stones, 
at the Falls. To raise the mill, it took all the able bodied citizens 
of the neighborhood, and a party of forty soldiers, from the fort 
who were accompanied by Lieut, (now General,) Armisted. 

The first time that Judge Porter succeeded in gettmg upon Goat 
Island, (previous to 1810,) there were old dates there upon trees; 
there had been a tree cut there, and a canoe built. The remains 



492 HISTORY OF THE 

of five or six human skeletons, were found there in early years. 
There were three or four acres that had been cleared by Captain 
Stedman to make a pasture for goats that he had once kept there; 

— hence the name. 

In 1811, Judge Porter and his brother General Porter made an 
attempt to buy Goat Island of the state; but could not succeed in 
getting the consent of the Legislature. In 1814, they had the good 
fortune to secure it. Samuel Sherwood, a lawyer of considerable 
eminence in his day, had afloat, as it is now called in our western 
states. It was an instrument given him by the state of New York, 
(such as are often issued from the General Land Office of the United 
States,) allowing the bearer to locate two hundred acres of any of 
the unsold or unappropriated lands of the state. It was given Mr. 
Sherwood as a consideration for some failure of title to lands he 
had purchased of the state. The brothers (Porters,) bought the 
instrument of him, and during the next year selected Goat Island, 
and t^ne small islands about it, as a part of the two hundred acres; 
in all, about seventy acres. In 1816, they received their "patent,'' 
or deed. The boundaries, as stated in the deed, are as follows : — 
"A certain island, commonly called Goat Island, being in the 
Niagara river, immediately above and adjoining the Great Falls; 

— together with several tracts, or masses of rock, surrounding and 
appendant to the said principal Island; — according to a plan or sur- 
vey of Parkhurst Whitney." The deed is signed by Daniel D. 
Tompkins, then Governor of the State; by Archibald Campbell, 
Deputy Secretary of State; and Martin Van Buren, as Attorney 
General, certified as usual in such cases. 

In 1817, Judge Porter threw a bridge across in the smooth, strong 
current, some distance above the present site. The bridge was 
completed in that year. During the next March, lake Erie was 
broken up suddenly by a violent wind; large masses of ice came 
down with such violence as to carry away the central and greater 
portion of it. In 1818, he erected another bridge, on the present 
site. He chose a location where the rapids were still stronger 
than at the previous one. There was this advantage in it, how- 
ever — it is low enough down to have the masses of ice principally 
broken before they reach it, and consequently not striking with as 
much force. A decided advantage, too, is gained in the location 
of the piers. There are, in the rapids a succession of eddies 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 493 

The piers are in each instance located in one of them. The main 
structure erected in 1818, is now standing, though it has required 
frequently, new planking, and other repairs.* 

Judge Porter is of the opinion, that Goat Island was formed by 
a gradual deposit, commencing at a period when there was not a 
very strong curi'ent. He thinks in the progress of the Falls from 
Lewiston to their present location, they were arrested a long time 
at the Whirlpool; thence the deep pit, or chasm, that has been 
excavated there. 

The Stedman family left Schlosser in 1795, the British portage 
having been transferred to the other side of the river, in anticipation 
of the surrender of this frontier. They left Jesse Ware in pos- 
session of their home and farm. He in fact not only claimed the 
Schlosser property, but some four thousand five hundred acres of 
land beside, including the Falls. He claimed as the successor of 
the Stedmans, their claim having been founded upon an assumed 
grant of the Seneca Indians of all the land that lay between the 
Niagara river, and the circuit he made in his flight from the mas- 
sacre at the Devil's Hole. The state having put Judge Porter and 
his associates in possession, no attempt was made to enforce the 
Stedman claim until 1823. In that year, Samuel Street, and 
Thomas Clark, of Chippewa, commenced a suit in ejectment in 
the Supreme Court of this state, in the name of the heirs of Philip 
Stedman. It was assumed that the Indians had once deeded the 
land to Stedman, and that the deed had been lost. The trial re- 
sulted in a nonsuit.f 

The Stedman family were in possession at Schlosser, from the 
period of British conquest in 1759, to 1795. Philip Stedman 
died in New York, in 1797, where he had gone for medical advice. 

* Great skill and ingenuity were required in the erection of these bridges. The 
process by which the piers were located was as follows: — An abutment was first laid a 
short distance out in the water; sticks of timber eighty feet long were hewed tapering; 
the light ends were carried out and the heavy ends secured upon the abutment. A man 
would then walk out upon each of these sticks, and the two would throw a girth across, 
secure it, and then manage to thrust posts into the swift water for the structure to rest 
upon. From this commencement, the cribs or piers were constructed; the process 
being repeated upon each exteftsion. Soon after the bridge was completed. Red 
Jacket was at the Falls, and was invited bj" Judge Porter to go and view it. After he 
had surveyed it attentively, with less thau his usual stoical indifferance, he muttered, 
"TrtTOW the Yankees " as much as to say, it took them to a difficult thing. 

t If the Indians did anything more than to promise such a grant to Stedman, they 
were unmindful of it the next year after the affair at the Devil's Hole. In that year 
(1764,) they made no reservation of land about the Falls, in their cession of the carry- 
ing place to the Kincr of Great Britain. 



494 HISTORY OF THE 

The transportation for all the region west of Cayuga lake, was 
by water, (the portages excepted,) until the completion of the 
Turnpike in 1803. After that it was mostly done with the "big 
wagons." When staging commenced, the time was usually two 
days from Albany to Utica, three days from Utica to the Genesee 
river, and two days from the river to Buffalo. Judge Porter has 
been seven days in coming from Albany to Canandaigua by stage; 
in 1802, he had the contract for carrying the mail from Utica to 
Fort Niagara. The route was the usual one to Buffalo; from 
thence, down on Canada side to Fort Niagara. Luther Cole was 
the first mail carrier west of Utica. 

Judge Porter was the first Post Master in Niagara county; he 
held the office until 1837, and was succeeded by Judge De Veaux. 

Major John Morrison, now residing upon lake shore, a mile and a 
half below Fort Niagara, was one of the first to make an opening in 
the woods of Niagara, in all the region north of Batavia and Lewis- 
ton road and east of Howell's creek. In the fall of 1803, he erected 
a log cabin in what was afterwards called Slayton's settlement, 
on Eighteen Mile creek, a mile below Maybec's mill. Keeping 
bachelor's hall, he chopped five acres, and in the spring brought his 
wife and children there from Niagara, U. C. His cabin not being 
large enough to accommodate the new comers, he put up in one 
day, with the help of Mrs. Morrison, a very considerable addition; 
covering it with peeled elm bark. Raised that season, among the 
logs, patches of corn and potatoes. Gad Warner, Thomas Slay- 
ton, Loudon Andrews, Samuel Capen, were his neighbors in 1804. 
Mrs. Morrison, who yet survives, gives a relation of the events of 
a night, which will interest the reader: — In the summer of 1804, 
her husband had gone out to Batavia to get some provisions; leav- 
ing her alone with her children over night. A pack of wolves 
came near the cabin and set up a terrible howl — such as is usual 
with them when scenting prey. Mrs. M. got up from her bed, and 
heard them for a long time, apprehending no danger until she 
found they had approached within a few feet of the door place. 
There was no door, a blanket supplied the place of one; this, as 
she was aware, afforded but a poor protection. Careful not to 
wake her sleeping children, lest the sound of their voices might 
excite the wolves to a bolder siege, she took her husband's axe and 
stood sentry, for hours and hours, until, day light approaching, the 
wolves retired into the depths of the forest. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 495 

The author will here observe, that a necessary brevity of narra- 
tive, obliges him to omit many relations of events like the above, 
and others that were attendant upon primitive forest life. 

The Ridge road, through all the eastern portion of Niagara, was 
discovered in 1805. Some of the new settlers in Slayton's settle- 
ment in 1805, were hunting cattle, and observed that there was 
continuous elevated ground, and changed their location, settling 
upon it east of Hartland Corners. It was not however known in 
its full extent through that region, until some years after. Jedediah 
Riggs, John Palmeter, and Daniel Brown, were the first settlers 
upon the Ridge, east of Howell's creek, in Niagara and Orleans 
counties. 

The pioneer in all the region named in connexion with the advent 
of Major Morrison, was Thomas Slayton. He was on his way to 
Canada, with his family; broke his wagon down, about two miles 
east of the Cold Springs, stopped in consequence, liked the country, 
took up land and chopped an acre or two. His horses having 
strayed^away from his log cabin, he went into the woods in pursuit 
of them, and in his rambles saw the fine soil and black walnut 
groves below the mountain, and soon changed his location, becoming 
the founder of Slayton's settlement. Those who pass now through 
that beautiful, highly cultivated region, will conclude that the earl}*- 
pioneer made a good selection, when he had a wide field before 
him. 

Stephen Bugbee, who went to Slayton's settlement in 1805, still 
survives. Joshua Slayton, one of the earliest residents, is still 
living, his residence, at Jackson, Michigan. The first religious 
meeting held in the pioneer neighborhood, (now town of Royalton,) 
was in 1808; Elder Joel Doubleday, of the Christian denomination, 
officiated. The church formed by him there, is supposed to be one 
of the first upon the Holland Purchase. Dr. David Dunn, was the 
first physician in town; Ezra Harwood, the first merchant; Thomas, 
or Joshua Slayton, raised the first crops; Stephen Bugbee built the 
first framed house and barn; William Curtiss planted the first 
orchard; Daniel Vaughn, who is still a resident of the town, was 
the first born. The church edifice erected by the Christian 
denomination in Slayton's settlement, is the first house built for 
public worship on the Holland Purchase; if we except the log 
church, built by Brant at Lewiston, before white settlement 
commenced. 



496 HISTORY OF THE 

Gladly would the author, from memory, in the absence of dates, 
if space permitted, bestow especial notice upon more ot the pio- 
neer settlers of Niagara. There was one of the pioneer land- 
lords upon the Ridge Road, William Molyneux, widely known in 
early times, and especially in the war of 1812; one of the best 
specimens of the "green isle of the ocean;" jovial, kind hearted and 
benevolent. The old landlord, and she, the companion in his early 
advent, who served up for long years, welcome repasts for the 
weary traveller — one of the best of pioneer wives and mothers — 
both, side by side, rest in a quiet rural spot, that will arrest the 
attention of the traveller as he passes along the Ridge Road, near 
their once residence; and near by, under the same green shade, 
rest the remains of a son who closed an early life of promise at 
West Point, a tasteful monument, erected by his brother cadets, 
indicating the high respect they entertained for his memory. The 
surviving sons of William Molyneux, now residents of Niagara, are 
Charles, (the landlord at the old stand,) William and Robert. An 
only daughter, is the wife of ex-sheriff, Hiram M'Niel. 

Capt. Lemuel Cooke was a first sergeant in the U. S. army, and 
came to Fort Niagara at an early period of American occupancy; 
remaining in the army but about one year, he opened a tavern near 
the fort at the ferry landing. In 1802 he removed to Lewiston. 
The sons of this early pioneer were Bates, Lothrop, and Isaac. 
Bates Cook, Esq. was the early P. M. at Lewiston, for a long 
period a practicing Attorney in Niagara, and ultimately filled the 
office of Comptroller of the State. He died at Lewiston a few 
years since. Judge Lothrop Cooke and his brother Isaac are yet 
residents of Lewiston. The family will again be referred to in 
connection with some events at Lewiston in the war of 1812; no 
family has been longer, and few more conspicuously identified with 
the history of the Holland Purchase. 

Judge Cooke mentions the fact that in the year 1799, he was 
sent to school to East Bloomfield, the then nearest one to the resi- 
dence of his father's family. The first school at Lewiston was in 
1806, kept by a Scotchman named Watson. 

And there is another reminiscence of his that should have been 
in an earlier connection: — In the summer of 1799, the garrison 
at Niagara was kept in readiness for action, in anticipation of a 
renewal of Indian wars. At one period a large body of Indians 
came down and camped on the Canada side. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 497 

Few were better known all along during the period of the war 
of 1812, than the early landlord and landlady at Lewiston, Mr. and 
Mrs. Hustler. He is said to have been the model Sergeant 
HoUister, of Cooper's Spy, and his wife the model Betty Flannagan. 
Both were taken prisoners at St. Clair's defeat, and were after- 
wards with Wayne's army. 

The Loyds, Browns, Dotys, Zittles, Swains, Hopkins were among 
the earliest settlers in Porter, and that, it will be observed, was one 
of the earliest settled towns upon the Purchase. 

Jacob Christman was the pioneer settler on Tonawanda creek, 
between Indian village and the Niagara river, settling at Chvistman's 
Rapids, as early as 1804. He was for several years the only settler 
in the distance named; George Van Slyck was the next settler. 

Reuben Hurd, a surviving pioneer, settled on Ridge Road in 
Cambria, in 1805. He says: — The early settlers used to go to 
Canada for their supplies of provisions; sometimes they would have 
no supplies there and then they would have to manage the best way 
they could. The Tuscarora Indians generally had corn to sell. 
Billious fevers and fever and ague, in early years, along the Ridge 
Road, were very prevalent, discouraged settlement. I have known, 
at several periods, more than half of the population sick. Before 
there was any mill at the Falls, we used generally to pound our 
corn out in stump mortars. The first school on Ridge Road was 
m a small log house, a mile west of Howell's. Mrs. Neal, the 
mother of George Neal was the teacher. Our earliest meetings 
were at the mission house, in Tuscarora; Methodist preachers 
soon came along, holding their meetings in the log houses of the 
settlers. At the breaking out of the war of 1812, 1 think there was 
not over one hundred acres of cleared land between Hardscrabble 
and the Cold Springs. 

Jeptlia Dunn was one of the earliest settlers on Ridge Road, in 
Hartland; now in his old age, the owner of a large and valuable 
farm; an anecdote of his early advent, may serve to illustrate how 
beneficial to settlers and the prosperity of the country was the 
policy of admitting settlers without requiring more than nominal 
advance payments. He applied to Mr. Ellicott for the land upon 
which he now resides. It was required that he should pay the usual 
per cent; this he was unable to do, for four dollars was all the 
money he possessed. Eventually, the land was "booked" to him, 
he advancing the four dollars, half of which, was handed back to 
32 



498 HISTORY OF THE 

him. upon Mr. Ellicott's understanding that he had a journey to 
make a considerable distance to the east on foot. A good settler 
was thus secured, and he paid for his land. It is not exaggera- 
tion to say, that there were a thousand of instances, that would as 
well illustrate the benefits that have flowed from giving men pos- 
session of soil, and trusting to their industry and energy for pay- 
ment of the purchase money. To be sure, the poor man obtains 
a few hundred dollars now, easier than he could then, but how 
many Jeptha Dunns have there been since the sales of public lands 
commenced at the west, who would have gone there and become 
free holders and useful citizens, if they could have got possession of 
lands as easy as he didt If they went there and located under 
pre-emption laws, sale days would come about, long before they 
could meet them. 

And here, through the aid of a venerable surviving pioneer, Mr. 
David Mather, of Lockport, we get another early glimpse of 
Buffalo:— 

I settled in Buffalo in April, 1806; there was then sixteen dwell- 
ing houses, principally framed ones; eight of them were scattered 
along on Main street, three of them were on the terrace, three of 
them on Seneca, and two on Cayuga streets. There were two 
stores; one the "contractor's" on corner of Main and Seneca 
streets, (east side of Main,) Vincent Grant, kept it. The other was 
the store of Samuel Pratt, adjoining Crow's tavern. Mr. Le 
Couteulx kept a drug store in a part of his house on Crow street. 
David Reese's Indian blacksmith shop was on Seneca street, and 
William Bobbins had a blacksmith shop on Main street. John 
Crow kept a tavern where Mansion House now stands, and Judge 
Barker kept one on the site of the market. 

I remember very well the arrival of the first public mail that 
ever reached Buffalo. It was brought on horse-back by Ezra 
Metcalf, he came to my blacksmith's shop and got his horse shod. 
He told me he could carry the contents of his bag in his two 
hands. 

"William Johnston died in 1807, aged 65 years. He was a good 
neighbor, a man of a good deal of intelligence; was much respected 
by the Indians. I was with him a good deal during his last illness, 
and froin what escaped him then, I judged that he had been famil- 
iar with some of the most barbarous scenes of the border wars. 

From 1809 to the commencement of the war, a good many set- 
tlers came into Buffalo, and a good many buildings were put up. 

In early times, I have on several occasions seen the water less 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 499 

than knee deep across the mouth of Buffalo creek. The few 
vessels then on the Lake, would lay off from a half to three 
fourths of a mile, or go down to Black Rock, anchoring below the 
rapids. 

Mrs. Mather, the wife of David Mather, also survives. She 
came to Bataviain 1802, was then the wife of Joseph Hawks, and 
a sister of the earliest physician there, Dr. Alvord. Mrs. Mather 
moved with her first husband to Williamsville, in 1805. Jonas 
Williams, a brother-in-law of Andrew A. Ellicott, from whom the 
village of Williamsville took its name, was then a young man just 
commencing a farm there — had purchased the old saw mill and 
water power, and was rebuilding the mill. For two years Mrs. 
M. was the only female at Williamsville; kept house for Mr. 
Williams. The nearest family was a half mile on the road east. 
She remembers that a Mr. Lewis opened the first tavern in the 
neighborhood, a mile and a half west of Williamsville, at the Hen- 
shaw stand, and that the settlers came in pretty fast upon the 
openings, in 1805. Mrs. M. says that she and her husband were 
three days getting from Batavia to Williamsville, with a yoke of 
oxen and wagon. 

Mrs. Mather became a resident of Buffalo in January, 1807. 
She participated in the formation of the first religious society; a 
union of Presbyterians and CongregationaHsts. The Rev. Thaddeus 
Osgood was the officiating minister. The first meetings w^ere held 
in the court house. The primitive members of the church were: 
— Mrs. Landon, Nathaniel Sill and wife, Mrs. Mather, Mrs. Pratt, 
and a young man whose name is not recollected. If Deacon 
Callender was not a member of the church on its first organization, 
he was soon after; except when missionaries came along, he took 
the lead in the meetings. Mrs. M. thinks that the Rev. Miles P. 
Squires, was the first settled minister in Buffalo. 

In the disposal of lots in Buffalo Mr. Ellicott was even more 
careful to confine the sales to actual settlers, and to require a cer- 
tain stipulated amount of improvements, in a given time, than in the 
sale of farming lands. He often refused to sell lots for the whole 
purchase money in advance, without buildings were first erected 
upon them, or some earnest given that there would be. This ac- 
counts for the slow sale of lots there. The whole original village 
plat, would have sold in the absence of such conditions, at the low 
prices asked, before 1820. As in the rest of the Purchase, there 



500 HISTORY OF THE 

was a resident in the confidence of the local agent, who would 
report to him from time to time the progress of improvements. 
Mr. Le Couteulx, at "New Amsterdam,*' would inform Mr. EUi- 
cott that such an one had a "framed house up and covered;" that 
another "had the frame out for a house;" that another "had a cel- 
lar dug;" that another had an inner lot "cleared and fenced in;" 
that another on an outer lot, had one two or three acres, "cleared 
and enclosed." Upon the contract books, there are numerous 
instances of entries stipulating the improvements that were to be 
made in a given time. These conditions it should be observed, 
were not for the usual purpose of increasing the value of the prem- 
ises, and keeping the lien for the purchase money good; but were 
intended to make every purchaser an actual settler. It would 
amuse the reader to see with what care Mr. Le Couteulx would 
inform Mr. EUicott that cellars were dug, frames up and partly 
covered, or the timber cleared away and enclosures made, where 
the land is now worth from two to three hundred dollars per foot, 
and covered with four and five story brick blocks. 

It may interest the reader to see some of the early prices of lots 
in New Amsterdam. No sales were made until 1804; such set- 
tlers as had made locations and improvements had done so with the 
promise of a pre-emptive right. In that year, lot 1, site of Man- 
sion House, was sold for $140, (deeded afterwards to Joseph Landon 
at that price.) Prices of lots in this year, generally corresponded 
with this example of prices. In 1805, Thomas Sid well paid $35 
and $45 for lots 75 and 76 on Pearl Street. In 1806, Asa Chap- 
man paid for lot 36 opposite Farmer's Hotel, $120; Eleazer Hovey, 
paid for out lots 146 and 147, (near barracks,) 11 and $12 per acre; 
David Mather, for lot 38 on Main Street, $120,25 in advance. In 
1807, Abraham Hershey, paid for lots 150, 151, 156, 157, $20 per lot 
In 1808, Alpheus Hitchcock paid $4 per acre for out lots 88 and 89. 
One of the first sales after the war, in 1816, was to Smith H. Salis- 
bury; lot 183 on Washington Street; price $480,80; was to erect 
a "house 20 feet square." Next sale in that year, was of lots 85 
and 86, to Miles P. Squier; purchase money, $550. There were 
but three sales in this year. In 1817, Frederick B. Merrill paid for 
lots 87 and 88, $580; was to "erect a house 20 by 24." Barent B. 
Staats, for E. pt. inner lot 90, $300; was to erect a house "24 feet 
square, 2 stories high." There were but two sales in this year. 
In 1818 no sales. In 1819, F. B. Merrill paid for outer lot 115, 




or tIK ENOICOTT g: CO, 






HOLLAND PURCHASE. 501 

per acre; and for parts of inner lots 87 and 88, (35 feet,) 8175. 
No other sale in that year. In 1820, J. D. Hoyt, paid for outer lot 
69, #30 per acre; Ralph M. Pomeroy, for outer lot 70, $35 per acre. 
There were but four sales in this year. In 1821, M. A. Andrews 
paid for inner lots 202 and 203, $200; for outer lots 120, 121, 127, 
128, 129, 130, 131, 132 — in all 79 acres — $25 per acre. Roswell 
Chapin for inner lot 133, $250. Sally Haddock, for Si acres, outer 
lot 28, $150. Ebenezer Johnson, for lots 100 and 102, — one acre 
— $200. Moses Baker, for lots 23 and 24, $400. Gilman Folsom 
for lot 198, $150; under a stipulation, to have "a framed house 
built in one year." Avery C. Tiftany, for lot 201, $180; was to 
erect a "brick house." John Rickard and Isaac Hampton for lot 
199, $150; were to build "a framed or brick house, immediately." 
About the middle of September, 1821, under the new agency of 
Mr. Otto, and a policy differing from Mr. Ellicott's with reference 
to conditions of sales, occupation, improvements, &cc. ; and with the 
prospect that the Erie Canal would terminate at Buflalo; a new 
impetus commenced; sales of lots were brisk. Before the close of 
the year, 91 lots were sold; the prices of inner lots ranging from 
$80 to $250; outer lots from $12 to $17 per acre. In 1822 there 
were 64 sales made; in fact, all that remained of the original plat 
of New Amsterdam; the prices not varying materially from those 
cited of 1821. A large portion of the original plat of New 
Amsterdam was sold in the nine months, ending June 1st, 1822. 



LOUIS STEPHEN LE COUTEULX. 

Louis Stephen Le Couteulx de Chaumont, was born at Rouen, in 
France, on the 24th of August, 1756. He was the only son of 
Anthony Le Couteulx, a counsellor at law, and delegate to the 
Parliament of Normandy. He was the head of the eldest branch 
of the Le Couteulx family. 

This family, which originated in Normandy, was ennobled in 
1505, on account of some service rendered the government, with 
the privilege, usually denied to the nobility, of engaging in com- 
merce. It always enjoyed high distinction and formed many 



Note. — All that part of the city lyings east of Ellicott Street, (which runs northerlj 
and somlicrly about ten rods east of the Court House,) and all north of Chippewa Stree t 
and south of Terrace, were denominated outer lots by the Holland Company, and sold, 
by the acre 



502 HISTORY OF THE 

alliances with distinguished families in France, particularly with 
that of La Fayette. 

He was destined for the magistracy; having no taste for that 
occupation, entered the commercial house of his relations, who had 
establishments in France and many other parts of Europe. 

Understanding the English and Spanish languages, he was sent 
to London and Cadiz, where he passed several years. 

In September, 1786, he married, in Paris, Miss Clonet, whose 
father held an honorable office in that city. She was a niece of 
General Touzard, who came to America with General La Fayette, 
during the Revolutionary war, and lost an arm in our service. 
This did not prevent him from remaining in the employ of our 
government until his death, which occurred in ISIL 

Immediately after his marriage, Mr. Le Couteulx was sent to the 
United States to negotiate a settlement of accounts with the house 
of Robert Morris. He arrived with his wife at New York on the 
15th of December, 1786, and repaired to Philadelphia, whither his 
business called him. Having arranged the accounts with Mr. 
Morris, and being pleased with this country, he rented a house in 
Trenton, New Jersey, where he remained until the July following. 
He then purchased an estate in Bucks county, near Philadelphia, 
of about two hundred acres, called '' La Petite France." 

Wishing to become a citizen of the United States, he made his 
first declaration on the 7th day of July, 1787, and eventually 
obtained his certificate of naturalization. 

The climate of this country not agreeing with his wife, he 
accompanied her to France the 17th of October, 1789, with his 
two sons, and returned alone to Philadelphia, the 17th of February 
folio win fT. 

He was among the first who introduced merino sheep into the 
United States, having imported a pair from Spain, in 1789, which 
he presented to Robert Morris. They were sent from Cadiz by 
the house of Le Couteulx, not without great difficulty and risk, as 
the Spanish government had forbidden their exportation under 
severe penalties. 

Having arranged his business with Mr. Morris, and being fond 
of traveling, he set out on horseback, accompanied with a servant, 
and visited the greater part of the United States. This occupied 
him two years, a part of which time he spent among various tribes 
of Indians for the purpose of studying their manners and customs 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 503 

During this sojourn among the Indians, he was adopted by the 
Senecas. He wrote an interesting journal of his travels which 
unfortunately has been lost. 

After finishing his travels, he established himself in business at 
Albany in the spring of 1795, where he continued to reside for 
many years. 

He set out in the month of September, 1800, with a large quantity 
of merchandize destined for Detroit, where he had determined to 
reside, in case he found it a good market for his goods. 

The usual route of travel to Detroit at that early period, was by 
way of Fort Niagara, Fort George, and Queenston to Chippewa, 
and Fort Erie, where shipping could be obtained direct to Detroit. 

On landing at Fort George on the 7th day of October, 1800, he 
was arrested by the English, on suspicion of being a French spy, 
and sent prisoner to Quebec, where he endured a rigorous captivity 
from the 4th day of November, 1800, until the 29th day of July, 
1802, when he was released in consequence of the ratification of 
peace between Great Britain and France. 

During his detention, strenuous exertions were made by his 
friends to procure his release, and the Government of the United 
States in vain claimed his discharge as an American citizen. 

His affairs experienced sad derangement during his long captivity, 
jput with what he could save from the wreck of his fortune, he soon 
after purchased from the Holland Company several lots in the then 
village of New Amsterdam — (now Buffalo.) 

Mr. Le Couteulx came to reside in Bufl^alo in the year 1804, soon 
after employed some Canadians to construct him a frame house 
opposite Mr. Crows, on the site of the building now known as the 
'■Le Couteulx Block," and in which he lived until the burning of 
Buffalo, with his second wife, whom he married a short time after 
his release from his captivity. 

He was soon after employed by the Holland Company as an agent 
for the sale of their lands in Buffalo and its vicinity, and was 
appointed first Clerk of Niagara county, the 26th of March, 1808, 
which office he continued to hold until the war of 1812. 

He then removed to Albany, where he had still a small property, 
and re-established himself in business in that city. 

He received the appointment of Forage Master in the service of 
the United States towards the close of the late war, which he held 
until June, 1815. 



504 HISTORY OF THE 

He was elected Sergeant at Arms by the Constitutional Conven- 
tion of 1821, and also by the New York Senate. 

He soon after returned to Buffalo, where he resided until his 
death, which occurred October 16th, 1839, at the age of 84 years. 
His wife had died the year previous. 

Thus have we sketched the prominent events of the life of Louis 
Stephen Le Couteulx, one of the earliest pioneers of Buffalo. He 
died regretted by all who were capable of appreciating his good 
qualities. As a private citizen, no one was more worthy of the 
general esteem and consideration in which he was held. . 

He was a kind father, affectionate husband, and firm friend. He 
was honest beyond suspicion; as a Catholic, he strictly observed all 
the requirements of his religion, and especially those of the Gospel, 
which induced him to regard all the unfortunate as his brethren, 
and to afford them assistance without reference to their religion. 

In the discharge of his public duties he was distinguished for his 
integrity, his zeal, and his affability. 

Although a foreigner by birth, no one excelled him in love of his 
adopted country, or more highly appreciated its institutions, and he 
was ever ready to sacrifice his personal interest for the general 
good. Some proofs of this may be found in the donations he has 
made to the city of Buffalo and other corporations, for benevolent 
purposes. He was the founder of St. Louis Church, erected by the 
Catholics on a large lot fronting on Main Street, in the City of 
Buffalo, which he presented to the Bishop of New York, and his 
successors in office, for that purpose, and for the construction of 
which he contributed a large share of the funds. He also gave 
another lot to the Irish Catholic congregation, on which they have 
recently erected a church. 

In acknowledgement of these benevolent acts, and to perpetuate 
his memory, the Common Council of the City of Buffalo procured 
his portrait to be painted a short time before his death, and have 
placed it among those of the mayors of the city, in the Common 
Council chamber. 



In 1804, Major Adam Hoops, whose name has occurred in con- 
nection with the earliest movements of the Holland Company in 
this region, purchased about ten thousand acres of land at Olean 
Point, and commenced founding a settlement there. Ebenezer F. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 505 

Norton was interested with him in the purchase. At that early- 
period, and in fact, until the completion of the Erie Canal, Glean 
Point, the head of navigation on the Alleghany river, was deemed 
to possess important advantages, as will be seen in connection with 
other accounts of early movements in that quarter. Anticipations 
were entertained, the fulfilment of which has been postponed, but 
which are in a fair way to be yet realized. It is here that the 
Genesee Valley Canal enters the Alleghany river; it is where the 
Erie rail road comes upon its banks; and it is the point up to which 
the river will in all probability, in the course of a few years, be 
made navigable for steamboats. 

Major Hoops, and his brother Robert, settled there, and built a 
small log house, in the same year the purchase was made. Pre- 
vious to the commencement of the settlement of the Holland 
Purchase, there was a small isolated settlement on the Osway, in 
Pennsylvania, adjoining the line of this state. Although a little 
beyond our bounds, it is quite too remarkable to be passed over:— 
Francis King, a member of the Society of Friends, came from 
London to Philadelphia, an adventurer in the new world, in 1795. 
In '97, at the suggestion of some capitalists of Philadelphia, he set 
out as a land explorer; after journeying over the wild regions of 
western Pennsylvania, for weeks in the forest, camping out; losing 
his way, and coming near famishing for food, he found his way out 
of the woods, and returning to Philadelphia, his representations 
induced Keating & Co. of that city, to purchase of Wm. Brigham 
Esq. (who had purchased of the state,) 300,000 acres of land in 
what is now Potter and M'Kean counties. The explorer became 
the resident agent of the owners. In the summer of '98, he came 
upon the purchase, with a few hired hands, and put up a log build- 
ing on the Osway, near the present village of Ceres, or Cerestown. 
His son and three daughters, joined him in his wilderness home in 
'98. There are few instances of pioneer life, so isolated, and that 
too, of a family who had been transferred from the largest city of 
Europe. Their nearest neighbors for two years, were in Dyke's 
settlement, at what is now Andover, in Allegany county, N. Y. 
The nearest neighbor in Pennsylvania was at the distance of fifty- 
six miles; no supplies could be obtained short of a journey of one 
hundred and forty miles, to a settlement on the Susquehannah. 
The pioneer settler used to send his son once a month, on a pack 
horse road to the nearest P. O. (Williamsport,) for his letters. 



506 HISTORY OF THE 

The journey used to be made on foot, and in all cases, involved the 
necessity of camping out one night going and coming. In 1800, 
several families came in. 

Francis King died in 1814. He was succeeded in the land 
agency, by his son John King, whom the author found last summer, 
a resident near Ceres, in a quiet and romantic spot, his hospitable 
mansion surrounded by shrubbery, and a display of fine floral and 
horticultural taste. It is a wild spot even now. The road to it 
from the Allegany river, is most of the way through a dense pine 
forest, along the base and sides of a mountain, and the settlement, 
with a pleasing rural aspect, reminds one of the descriptions of 
secluded retreats among the mountains of Switzerland. If any 
of our readers should take a summer ramble in that direction, to 
breathe pure air, angle for trout in the streams, or indulge in the 
chase; they should not fail to visit Ceres, and make the acquaint- 
ance of John King, or " Quaker John " as he is sometimes called. 

His residence for a half century, having been in close proximity 
to the Holland Purchase, he was enabled to give the author many 
reminiscences of early events. 

Soon after the Hoops settled at Olean, they were joined by the 
Russell and Read families. There followed soon after, settling on 
village plat, and upon Oil creek, Elisha Johnson, Ebenezer Reed, 
James Brooks, Zacharia Orsterhout, James Green. The early 
tavern keepers were Sylvanus Russell, and Jehiel Boardman; the 
early merchants were Levi Gregory, and Ebenezer Lockwood; the 
early physicians were Norman Smith, A. C. Bennett, and Andrew 
Mead, the last of whom still survives. 

The first saw mill built on the upper waters of the Allegany, 
was on the Osway, a mile and a half above the mouth, by Athertot 
and Horton; or rather this was the first built to make lumber as an 
article of commerce. Francis King had built a saw mill at Ceres 
in '99, to accommodate the settlers. He built a grist mill at Ceres 
in 1801; before that, all the corn of the settlers was pounded in 
mortars; no mill within one hundred miles. Lumber was first 
taken down the river from above Olean in 1807. It was sawed in 
King's mill. 

In 1809 or '10 Olean Point began to become the place of em- 
barkation for emigrants, and for a long period, in portions of each 
year, great numbers assembled there, built arks, and embarked on 
their way down the Allegany and the Ohio. For a few years 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 507 

pending the completion of the Erie Canal, every spring, the emi- 
grants awaiting the opening of navigation on the river counted to 
the number of thousands; are said to have amounted to over three 
thousand in 1818. On that as well as other occasions, the great 
numbers accumulating there, created great scarcity of food. The 
river would remain closed longer than they had anticipated, supplies 
of provisions would be exhausted; and that too, at seasons of the 
year when the state of the roads made it extremely difficult to get 
provisions in. The families of emigrants, far exceeding the capa- 
city of public and private houses, were obliged to erect tents and 
shantees to live in. Flour has sold at Olean upon such occasions, 
as high as $25 dollars per barrel, and pork, for $50. In numerous 
instances emigrants would become penniless, before they could get 
down the river. Sometimes large numbers of emigrants would 
commence their journeys towards the last of sleighing, intending to 
reach Olean just before the breaking up of ice in the river; the 
snow would go off before their journey was accomplished; sleighs 
would be left and wagons substituted; and then followed long days 
and weeks of slow progress; (the roads almost impassable;) depri- 
vation and suffering. This affords the reader a glimpse of what it 
was to emigrate to the western states, before the facilities were 
afforded that now exist. How slow must have been the progress 
of settlement at the west, in the absence of the Erie Canal, and 
the facilities to transportation upon the Lakes which it promoted! 
Vast as have been the benefits of the Erie Canal at home, it has 
speeded the founding of a new empire at the west. 

Although it is going some years beyond the period we have 
generally so far embraced, in tracing the progress of settlement, 
we will add in this connection some account of the early advent of 
Friend's missions upon the Allegany Reservation, obtained from 
John King. The mission was first established in the year 1798, by 
the Yearly Meeting of Philadelphia. Joel Swayne, HalHday 
Jackson, Chester Simmons, three young Friends from Chester 
county, Pa. became residents upon the Reservation, locating about 
five miles below the Cold Springs. They became teachers of agri- 
culture and other arts of civilized life; and school teachers. The 
Yearly Meeting soon after purchased three hundred acres of land 
of the Holland Company, and built a saw mill and grist mill. The 
mills did work for the white settlers, upon the usual terms, and 
furnished lumber, and ground corn for the Indians, free. Robert 



508 HISTORY OF THE 

Clendenon, from Chester county, Pa. with his wife and two daugh- 
ters, occupied the mission station as early as 1812. Under his 
supervision the mills were rebuilt that had been first built by Jacob 
Taylor and Jonathan Thomas. The Clendenon family remained 
there four years; the daughters were school teachers, and taught 
the squaws to sew, knit, spin and the duties generally of house 
keeping, as practiced in civilized life. One of them is now the wife 
of John King, and the other resides with him. They are familiar 
with the character and habits of the Indians, and manifest a deeo 
interest in their welfare. One of them informed the author that 
there were descendants of Sir William Johnson now residing upon 
the Allegany Reservation. 

The author was amused, and it is presumed the reader will be, 
with the reason that John King gave for the slow progress of 
settlement and improvement on the Allegany. He said it was 
owing to the easy facilities of getting away from there; that the 
new settlers would get dissatisfied, discouraged, and had only to 
get together a few slabs, form a raft, and be carried with the cur- 
rent of the river to a new home. He inferred that there were 
periods with most of those who attempt the settlement of new 
countries, when they would back out, or go further on, if they 
could do it as easily; and he added, what many a pioneer settler 
will sanction, that there are many prosperous citizens of the whole 
region of Western New York who have reason to be thankful that 
there were formidable obstacles to getting away in early days of 
privation and endurance. 

A brief abstract of memorandums made in conversation with 
John Green, the son of the early pioneer, James Green, will 
embrace some of the earliest events in that region: — 

I came with my father to Olean in 1806. He was the first 
supervisor of Olean; used to go to Batavia to attend the sitting of 
Board of Supervisors; the town of Olean was all Cattaragus. He 
built a saw mill on Haskell's creek in 1808, the first mill built for 
the lumber business on the Allegany. 

I am now the oldest resident of Cattaragus county. The first 

death and funeral in Cattaragus were those of Husten. 

He was killed by the springing of a tree, while getting out spars 
on the river, in 1807. There was no one to take the lead of any 
religious service; it was as much as we could do to get together 
enough to bury him. Maritis Johnson, Esq. son of Elisha Johnson, 
was the first born male child in Cattaragus, and a sister of mine, 
the first female. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 509 

1 remember the execution of a squaw on the Allegany, in 1807. 
She was convicted of witchery. The principal proof against her 
was that she had foretold that some of the Indians would die, who 
were very sick at the time. Cornplanter was absent; when he 
returned he disapproved of it; the Prophet, who had been the prin- 
cipal means of condemning her, was obliged to go to Canada to get 
rid of the vengeance of the surviving relatives. The execution was 
a horrid one; the executioner, an Indian by the name of Sun Fish, 
struck her on the head with a hatchet; she came to and groaned, 
when he cut her throat with a knife. 

I had a long and familiar acquaintance with Cornplanter. I have 
no doubts as to his parentage. He was the son of O'Bail, an 
Irishman, who was an Indian trader; his mother was a Seneca 
squaw. His Indian name was Ki-en-twa-ka, which means a large 
cornfield; it came in consequence of his cultivating large cornfields, 
when he resided down the river, near Pittsburgh, He died in 1837 
or '38, aged 100 years. He was a strong minded man, always 
temperate: he had a great veneration for Washington. He had 
no education, has often brought papers to me to read and explain 
to him. He was a confirmed pagan; he once favored a Methodist 
Missionary upon the Reservation — was rather disposed to favor 
religion — but relapsed into paganism. He was for a long time 
opposed to schools, for the reason that learning had so bad an eflfect 
upon his son Henry. 

Mr. Green located on the Allegany, at Great Valley, where he 
now resides, in 1813. He has consequently, for a long period, been 
a neighbor of the Indians on the Allegany Reservation. He is 
familiar with much of their history, and speaks their language. 
When he settled at Great Valley, there was no other white 
inhabitant on the Allegany below Olean. 



In these brief sketches appertaining to the neighborhood of the 
Allegany, one who may well be considered the "oldest settler," 
should not be overlooked: — Governor Blacksnake, head chief of 
the Allegany Reservation, still survives. His residence is in a small 
framed house, on the river, a mile and a half above Cold Springs. 
He has passed his hundredth year, but yet walks erect, travels a 
good deal, spends most of his time visiting his numerous descendants, 
and giving his people the benefit of his counsels. Although a pagan, 
he is yet tolerant, and makes no serious opposition to missionary 
efforts. It was during last summer, that he gave to an intelligent 
informant of the author, a pretty distinct declaration of hi-s religious 
views. He said he was an old man, familiar with the ancient rites 



510 HISTORY OF THE 

and customs of his people; that the mission of the Saviour was to 
the white and not to the red man; that with the Indians, the 
christian religion is an innovation. In his speeches in councils, he 
urges the Indians to habits of temperance; advises them to cultivate 
their lands and build comfortable houses. His memory of events, 
is retentive, and it embraces a period of ninety years; the wars of 
his own people, their wars with the English, and the border wars 
of the Revolution. His descendants are to the fifth generation. 
He is one of the few who have survived, and realized what the 
familiar language illustrates: — "Arise daughter, and go to your 
daughter, for your daughter's daughter, has got a young daughter." 

Peter R. Grouse, an educated, intelligent half blood, is a resident 
at the Cold Springs; his wife is a grand daughter of Mary Jemison. 
His father, then a boy fifteen years old, was taken prisoner during 
the border wars of Pennsylvania, conformed himself to Indian 
habits, married a squaw, aud spent his life, as a matter of choice, 
among his captors. There are fifty of his descendants living. 
From the son who has been named, the author gathered some 
interesting facts, in reference to the Indians upon the Allegany 
Reservation: — They now number about nine hundred. They 
chiefly consist of two tribes, the Senecas and Onondagas; the 
Oneidas, a few in number, have recently been adopted by the Sen- 
ecas. Jacob Blacksnake, a son of the Governor, generally presides 
in council. The early Friend's missipn establishment is still kept 
up. The Presbyterians have besides, two mission establishments 
upon the Reservation. There are four schools. The general 
tendencies upon the Reservation, are to agricultural and general 
improvement. 

By a reference to the preceding list of settlers, and the townships 
settled, it will be observed that up to Jan. 1st, 1807, the pioneers 
of Chautauque were along and near Lake road, from Gattaragus 
creek to Pennsylvania line, and in the vicinity of Mayville and 
Jamestown. 

Mrs. Marshall, the relict of the late Dr. Marshall, of Buffalo, who 
still survives and roeides in the city with her son, Orsamus H. 
Marshall, Esq., is a daughter of the early pioneer in Ghautauque, 
Orsamus Holmes. She remembers distinctly the events attending 
the advent of her father, with his family, in June, 1805. Arriving at 
Buffalo, after spending a night in the humble travelers' home of 
John Grow. There was hut the beach road upon the lake, for 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 511 

them to travel to their new home in the wilderness. Crossing 
Buffalo creek at its mouth, on the bar, their progress was a slow 
and tedious one. All the inhabitants then on the route were the 
family that preceded Judge Barker, eight miles up the lake, a 
family at Eighteen Mile creek, Capt. Sydnor, at Cattaragus creek, 
and a family by the name of Dickinson, at Silver creek. Mr. 
Holmes' location was three miles east of Fredonia, on the main 
road. Mrs. Marshall names all the settlers along on the road, in 
1805 and '6; the reader will find them by referring to list of names, 
and the townships along the lake shore, in Chautauque. Mr. 
Holmes died in Ohio, where he had gone to reside with a son, in 
1835. Dr. Marshal], who was the first physician in Mayviilo, and 
the first County Clerk of Chautauque, died in Buffalo, in 1838. 

Col. James M'Mahan, from Northumberland county, Pennsyl- 
vania, was the pioneer settler of Chautauque. He had commenced 
negotiations for the purchase of a township, m a personal visit to 
this region soon after the surveying commenced. Jn September, 
1802, he contracted for the purchase of T. 4, R. 14, which included 
the mouth of Chautauque creek, and site of the village of Westfield. 
Although he first settled there, and built a mill, it would seem that 
the land was never conveyed. His location was transferred to T. 
3, R. 15, now town of Ripley, where he purchased a tract of eight 
or nine thoussnd acres, and became the founder of what was long 
after known as M'Mahan's Settlement. 

In some published accounts, which are noticed in the preface, it 



Note. — Hon. Uaiiiel G. Garnsey, a former Representative in Congress from the 
district composed of Cliantauque, Erie and Niagara, has related to tlie author some 
passages in the hfe of Mr. Holmes which furnish extraordinary instances of suffering 
and perseverance. He gathered them from a memorial he presented to Congress, in 
his hehalf, asking a pension, which was granted. In the year 1775, when he was but 
seventeen years old, he accompanied the expedition of General Montgomerv, against 
Quebec. Returning, he re-enlisted in the army, and was enrolled in the Green Moun- 
tain crops, under Col, Herrick. About the period of the evacuation of Ticonderoga 
by the British, he was upon a scouting party, and himself and a companion were taken 
prisoners and carried to Quebec. While confined on board a prison ship, he and three 
others made their escape, and in a ship's boat crossed the St- Lawrence and struck into 
the wilderness wi'siout compass or guide. The four traveled seventeen days in a dreari' 
region, subsisting the first seven days on four hai'd biscuits and eight ounces of pork a 
day; and the remaining ten days on the inner bark of the white pine and a few fish 
they caught with their hands. At the expiration of this period they were re-taken by a 
party of Lidians and taken back to Quebec. Three of them escaped again, by leaping 
from the second story window of the provo prison, evading a guard of eighteeen 
men. They crossed the river, and, striking again into the wilderness, after many days 
of suffering reached the frontier settlement of Vermont. The reader will conclude 
that such an adventurer was well fitted to be a pioneer of a new settlement. 



512 HISTORY OF THE 

is stated that Edward M'Henry, was the next settler on '• ail 
adjoining tract." The author is disposed to conclude that M'Henry 
settled under the auspices of Gen. M'Mahan, inasmuch as there is 
no record of any contract of his with the Holland Company. John 
M'Henry, born in 1802, was the first white child born in 
Chautauque. In 1803 M'Henry was drowned while attempting to 
make a trip from the mouth of Chautauque creek to Erie, in a small 
boat, after provisions. 

The first white resident of Chautauque, was Amos Settle. He 
had resided near the mouth of the Cattaragus creek for three years 
before the sale of the Holland Company lands commenced. 

The present village of Irving, or that portion of it which 
embraces the mouth of the Cattaragus creek, was at an early 
period of the surveys of the Purchase, platted as a village site, and 
called "Cattaragus;" village lots were sold there, as in Mayville 
and other of the original Holland Company villages, cotemporary 
with the sale of farming lands in the neighborhood. In addition to 
the Amos Settle, that civilization found there, those who took 
contracts in early years, (not included in the list,) were Sylvester 
Maybee, Sylvester Mark, Nathan Cole, Benjamin Kenyon, Joseph 
Hadsell. 

Settlements were commenced in the neighborhood of Fredonia in 
1804; David Eason was the pioneer. In the same year. Dr. 
Kennedy, from Meadville, Pa., who is mentioned in a pi'eceding 
chapter as having married one of the daughters of Andrew Ellicott, 
erected a saw mill on the Conewango — the first structure of the 
kind in Chautauque, and the first step in the way of improvement 
taken south of the Ridge. 

The mill of Gen. M'Mahan, on Chautauque creek, was erected 
in 1804, though the author is disposed to conclude, was not in 
operation that year, for in some reminiscences furnished by an early 
settler, it is mentioned that Judge Gushing, and some of his 
neighbors, the first year after they went into the woods, made tiips 
to Street's mill, at Niagara Falls, on foot, carrying flour and meal 
home on their backs. And in fact, it is difficult to conclude- what 
a mill would have found to do in Chautauque, until the fall of 1805, 
as previous to that, there could have been no crops raised of an}- 
consequence. In 1805, Mr. Dickinson, the pioneer at Silver Creek, 
erected a saw mill, to which he attached a pestle and mortar, for 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 513 

pounding corn. Mr. Moore erected a grist mill at Forestville in 
1806. Along in 1805 and '6, flour was worth in that part of the 
Purchase, from $12 to $15, and pork from $18 to $30 per barrel. 

In April, 1806, the town of Chautauque, (including all of what 
is now Chautauque county,) having been set off from Batavia, a 
town meeting was held, Gen. M'Mahan elected supervisor, and 
James Montgomery, town clerk. Previous to this, as will be seen 
by some account we shall give of the organization of Genesee 
county, the early settlers had to go to Vandeventer's, on Buffalo 
road, for the transaction of their town business. 

John M'Mahan, David Eason and Perry G. Ellsworth, were the 
first justices of the peace commissioned for Chautauque county. 

William Wilson, in 1806, was the pioneer settler of the town of 
Ellicott; Joseph Aikin, of the town of Carrol; Messrs. Griffith, 
Bemus and Barnhart, were the pioneers on the eastern shores of 
Chautauque lake. \Xj^ For names of settlers up to Jan. 1st, 1807, 
see townships 6, ranges 10 and 11, townships 2, 5 and 6, range 12, 
townships 3 and 5, range 13, township 3, range 15, Irving and 
Mayville. 

The settlement of the county of Chautauque was rapid, almost 
from the commencement up to the war of 1812. It had at an early 
period, a high reputation, which has been so abundantly justified 
since; or rather demonstrated, in the almost universal and substantial 
prosperity that exists there. The author can well remember, when 
(along in 1809, '10 and 11,) the early emigrants, with their covered 
wagons, or sleighs, were to be seen almost daily, upon either the 
Buffalo road, or the south road that terminates on the lake, eight 
miles above Buffalo. It was a land of promise with them then, and 
such it has proved; but the full fruition, as in all other portions of 
the Holland Purchase, was only to be realized after long years of 
privation and endurance, such as the settlement of the wilderness 
involves. With what stout hearts they would move along in their 
emigrant journeys; the pioneer himself, driving his team, with 
ruddy and cheerful countenance, undismayed by all the difficulties 
that were ahead of him; behind him, his boys, driving a cow, a few 
sheep and hogs; and often his wife and daughters, trudging along 
on foot. There are many of the now prosperous farmers of 
Chautauque, whose journeys into the wilderness were after the 
manner described. Their advents are mingled with the earliest 
recollections of the author; he has seen them making their slow 



514 HISTORY OF THE 

progress over the rough, muddy, primitive roads; them, and their 
glorious pioneer wives, worn down, almost overcome with the toils 
and fatigues of a long journey; at nights sheltered in the humble 
log cabin tavern, their scanty stores of provisions spread out; and 
yet cheerful and happy; — and well pleased has he been in long 
after years, to hear that a deserved success had crowned their 
efforts; that peace and plenty smiled around their once forest homes. 

Hundreds of anecdotes could be told of the early settlers of 
Chautauque, that would illustrate that there, as well as upon all the 
rest of the Purchase, the pioneers were as poor a class of men, 
generally, as ever became founders of new settlements. Many of 
them got possession of their lands by paying mere nominal sums in 
advance ; in some instances not over twenty-five cents. There are 
now in Chautauque and south part of Erie, (and the remark may 
be applied to the whole Holland Purchase,) many families, now the 
most prosperous, whose last dollar was spent when they had 
arrived at their locations in the forest, erected their log cabins, and 
suppHed themselves with some scanty stores of provisions; and far 
the more credit is due to them, in consideration that such was their 
humble, hard beginnings. It may seem incredible; none but those 
who have seen the hardest features of pioneer life, can realize the 
truth of it; but the author has seen those who are yet surviving, 
surrounded with all the blessings that wealth can bestow, and those 
who have died after laying foundations of wealth for their descend- 
ants; making long journeys on foot, through wilderness paths, and 
primitive roads; returning with a peck of meal, perhaps a bag of 
flour, and sometimes with but a few potatoes, for the sustenance 
of themselves and families. 

One of the earliest pioneers of Chautauque; afterwards a pros- 
perous farmer; for a long period occupying a seat upon the bench 
of the county, obtained possession of his lands by depositing in the 
land office at Batavia, his watch, to secure a part of the small 
advance payment. The transaction is minuted upon the books, and 
entry was afterwards appended that he had redeemed his watch. 

The circumstance of Mr. Ellicott's getting frequent reports 
through Mr. Le Couteulx, of what the purchasers of lots in Buffalo 
were doing m the way of improvement has been noticed. All over 
the Purchase there were the same reports made. Below the 
entries in all the early contract books, there are memorandums, 
generally in Mr. Ellicott's hand writing, after this manner: — "D. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 515 

E. reports that has gone on to the lot, and put up the body 

of a log house." "J. F. reports that has chopped two 

acres." "G. H. reports that has cut logs for a house, and 

mtends bringing his family in this fall." "H. K. called at the office 

to-day and reports that has never yet been upon his lot, and 

doubts whether he ever will." "H. P. reports that hat= 

three acres cleared, which he is intending to sow to wheat this fall." 
And in this way an eye was kept on the progress of improvement, 
and a general knowledge obtained of v^^ho were becoming actual 
settlers, and who were not. Appended to the leaves of the con- 
tract books are frequent short notes, addressed to Mr. Ellicott, 
recommending the bearers as worthy, industrious men, who are 
disposed to become settlers, signed by residents of the neighbor- 
hoods where the locations were intended to be made. 

It will be observed that the Chamberlin family were the first to 
take contracts in that portion of the county of Allegany which is 
on the Holland Purchase. The patriarch of that family, so nume- 
rous and so closely blended with the settlement and progress of the 
counties of Allegany and Cattaragus, was Benjamin Chamberlin. 
He was the pioneer settler of Angelica, locating there in 1802. 
Few had more actively participated in the war of the Revolution. 
He was in the battles of Lexington, Bunker Hill, with Arnold at 
Quebec, (where he was made a prisoner and confined through the 
winter,) at Saratoga and Stillwater, White Plains, Stony Point, and 
Valentine's Hill. At Bunker Hill he had his left arm broken; at 
White Plains he was shot through one of his thighs; at Stony 
Point he was thrust with a bayonet; was shot in one of his feet at 
Valentine's Hill. In addition to all this he lost the use of an eye. 
He carried to his grave the marks of the heavy irons that were 
put upon his wrists, while a prisoner at Quebec. 

The old veteran, whose eventful fife should be the subject of a 
volume, rather than of a sketch so brief, was a native of Cheshire, 
Massachusetts. He died at Angelica, in 1847, aged 90 years. He 
was the father of Hon. Calvin T. Chamberlin of Cuba, and Judge 
Benjamin Chamberlin of Ellicottville. There are over one hundred 
of his descendants now residents of Western New York. 

There is little in the way of settlement to notice, in Allegany, 
previous to the close of 1806. The condition of the whole of the 
south-eastern part of the Purchase at that period, will be realized 
from a statement of an old gentleman by the name of Metcalf, a 



51C HISTORY OF THE 

resident at Ellicottville. His father, John Metcalf, came to Bat; 
with Mr. Wilhamson, and was the keeper of the public house he 
erected there. Mr. Metcalf says: — "In January 1806, 1 came 
througii from Bath to Angelica, and then on to Olean Point. The 
road from Angelica to Olean was then only underbrushed; the logs 
were not cut out; I had to lift my sleigh over them. There was 
then no inhabitants between Genesee river and Olean. I found 
large hunting pai'ties of Indians encamped about the small settlement 
that the Hoops had commenced, with whom I bartered goods for 
furs. I then started for Buffalo, taking an Indian trail that crossed 
the Cattaragus creek a short distance below Arcade. In all this 
route, I saw no white man, except at Olean, and after I had reached 
a few pioneer settlers in the south part of Erie."' 

Pike was one of the earliest settled portions of Allegany. 
Phineas Harvey was the pioneer. He settled there in May, 1806.- 
Eli Griffith settled there the same year, and in that year, or the 
next. Oldened a road for Holland Company, from Leicester to 
Castile. Griffith built a saw mill in 1808, and a grist mill in 1809. 
Michael Griffith, the father of Eli Griffith, and the Mr. Harvey 
that has been named, settled three miles east of village. Peter 
Granger and Asahel Newcomb settled same year. The settlers 
that followed soon after, were: — Christopher Olin, Salmon Sim- 
onds, Alanson Langdon, Payne Turner, Josiah Metcalf, Rufus 
Metcalf, Thomas Dole, Asa Lyon, Robert Boggs. Settlement in 
that quarter was brisk until the breaking out of the war. The 
early pioneer, EU Griffith, went out under Smyth's proclamation 
and died on his way home; his neighbors, Jonathan Couch and 
Charles Benton, met the same fate. Mr. Caleb Powers, from 
whom we derive some local reminiscences of Pike, says, that in 
1816 and '17, there was much suffering for food among the new 
settlers in all that region. The first born in Pike were twins, chil- 
dren of Mrs. Harvey; did not survive. The first death of aii adult 
was that of Phineas Harvey. It was in 1807; there was no one to 
take the lead in any funeral ceremonies. The earliest minister? 
who visited that region, were Elder Smith, from Caneadea, and 
Elder Goodale, from Pittstown, Ontario Co. The first settled min- 
ister was Elder Gillett. A Baptist church was formed in 1812; n 
Presbyterian soon after. The fifst merchant was Tilly Parker. 
In the earliest years of merchandizing there, common tea cups ano 
saucers were two doUars a sett; factory shirting, four shillings per 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 



517 



yard. Andrew Button was the first physician. Eli Griflith kept 
the first tavern. The first clotiiing and cloth dressing establishment 
was at "Bloody Corners;"* Miles Rood was the proprietor. 

The Thomas Dole, named above, was the afterwards Judge 
Dole, a conspicuous pioneer of Allegany, and deserving a more 
extended notice. In this instance however, as well as numerous 
others, the author relying upon the promise of those who could 
furnish the necessary data, has been disappointed. 

James Cravath, William Bristol, Benjamin Morse, Elnathan 
George, were the pioneer settlers south of Warsaw, in all of the 
present county of Wyoming; their locations, Gainsvillc and Weath- 
ersfield. During the war, Mr. Cravath built a grist and saw mill 
on the Wiscoy, between Hermitage and Springs. 

The first settlers at Hermitage, were Eugene F. Stowe, Sidney 
Stowe, Augustus Hurlburt, Wm. R. Groger, Daniel Granger, and 
James Weeks. 

It will be observed by list of settlers, that there is little to be 
said of settlement in Orleans, previous to Jan. 1st, 1807. It would 
seem that Mr. Ellicott had at an early period, selected the mouth 
of Oak Orchard creek as the site of a village. It was platted in 
1803, and called "Manilla." Looking to the lake route, as the 
course that trade from a large portion of the Holland Purchase 
would take; Lewiston and Manilla were the anticipated depots. 
At that period, such vessels as were u{)on the lake, could enter the 
mouth of the Oak Orchard; the barrier there, was progressive, up 
to the period of commencing the recent harbor improvement. 
The Oak Orchard road from Batavia north, so early projected and 
opened, had reference to Manilla as the commercial depot for the 
middle and eastern portions of the Purchase. It will be seen that 
a few lots were sold there, previous to 1807, though but little was 
done in the way of founding a village. Sickness alone would have 
prevented it in all the early years; and in later years — the 
projection of the Erie Canal, arrested the projects of commercial 
depots upon the Lakes. 

James Walsworth, known in all early years, as the tavern keeper 
on Lockport and Batavia road, upon the borders of the Tonawanda 
swamp, was the pioneer settler of Manilla, and in fact, of all 
Orleans county. In May, 1803, he landed at mouth of Oak 

* There was an early tavern keeper there, who made his house celebrated for broils 
and fights; thence the name 



518 HISTORY OF THE 

Orchard in an open boat, with his family, and built a solitary hut, 
the first and only one, between Fort Niagara and Braddock's 
Bay; his nearest neighbor west, at Cold Springs, near Lock- 
port, his nearest south. Pine Hill, (Elba;) his nearest east. Brad- 
dock's Bay. After they landed, he and his wife cut and barked 
poles for 'tiieir cabin, covering with bark. The early adven- 
turer was very poor; all the provision he had when he landed, 
was a few bushels of potatoes; fish had to supply the rest for the 
sustenance of his family, save a little barter with the crews of 
bateaux, as they were passing few and far between, up and down 
the lake; and the author observes by the old books kept at the 
Irondequoit pioneer store, that he used to take some furs and 
peltries down there, and exchange them for some of the necessaries 
of life. Among some reminiscences of this early pioneer, it is 
mentioned, that either while living at Oak Orchard, or after he 
moved up on to the Lewiston road, in 1806, his wife gave birth to 
a pair of twin?. The parturition was in the absence of either her 
own sex or a physician. 

After clearing up the large farm on the Lockport and Batavia 
road, Mr. Walsworth, many years since, again became a pioneer; 
emigrated to the west. 

Walsworth, and the few others that located at Oak Orchard, were 
all the settlers in Orleans, before 1809, except Whitfield Rathbun, 
who was the pioneer upon all that part of the Ridge Road, in 
Orleans county, embraced in Holland Purchase. 

It will be noticed, by reference to tabular list of settlers, that 
settlement had just begun at the mouth of Eighteen Mile creek, in 
Niagara, and at Johnson's creek, in Orleans, in 1806. Burgoyne 
Kemp settled at the Eighteen Mile creek in 1808. There was 

then settled there WiUiam Chambers and Colton; and there 

was one family at Johnson's creek, on lake. At that period there 
was no settler between lake and Ridge, in Niagara or Orleans. 

Richard M. Stoddard, it will have been observed, was early in 
the employ of Mr. Ellicott as a surveyor; and was afterwards 
employed by him to survey the Triangular Tract for Messrs. Le 
Roy and Bayard. He became the agent for the sale of the tract. 
He had married in 1799, Miss Saltonstall, of Canandaigua, a sister 
of Dudley Saltonstall, Esq. Messrs. Stoddard and Saltonstall 
purchased of the proprietors the five hundred acres which is now 
5he site of Lc Roy village. The interest of Mr. Saltonstall was 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 519 

soon after sold to Judge Ezra Piatt. Stoddard and Piatt became 
the pioneer settlers upon the Triangular Tract, in 1801, opening a 
land office at Le Roy, and soon commencing the building of mills. 

The aged widow of Mr. Stoddard is now residing with her son, 
Thomas B. Stoddard, Esq., near Irving, in Chautauque county. 
She relates some interesting reminiscences of early times; few are 
more familiar with the early history of all Western New York. 

The primitive residence at Le Roy, was a log house on the bank 
of Allan's creek. During the first winter of their residence there, 
Mr. Stoddard was engaged in tending the saw mill during a night. 
A party of intoxicated Indians came into the kitchen, built up a 
large fire and commenced making a pow wow, as if they were 
masters of the premises. Mrs. Stoddard, who was abed in another 
room, managed to get a little girl out of the window, who went to 
the mill and alarmed Mr. Stoddard. As he came into the house 
the Indians attacked him and a severe fight ensued; Mr. S. was, 
however, the victor, and succeeded in expelling the intruders. 
There are many traditions of his adventures, related by the earliest 
class of settlers in that region; especially such as occurred when 
he was sheriff of Genesee county. He was fearless and deter- 
mined; had seen much of backwoods life; and few w^ere better 
adapted to the work of settling a new country, and becoming its 
chief executive officer. Anecdotes are told of his many acts of 
kindness to the new settlers, especially in the discharge of his 
official duties. He was much esteemed by the Indians; and was 
often consulted by their chiefs, in reference to the interests of their 
people. Mrs. Stoddard redeems the Indian character from the dis- 
grace of the drunken frolic, by stating that upon one occasion, 
when the whole family were sick with a prevailing influenza, a 
party of Indians and squaws greatly mitigated the disease by 
coming to their house, and giving the invalids an "Indian sweat." 
They dug holes in the earth, put in hot stones, poured water over 
them, and placed the patients under the influence of the steam, 
covering them over with blankets, and giving them warm drinks. 

"Sheriff Stoddard," as he is familiarly called by the earlier class 
of pioneers, died in 1810. His only daughter, was the first wife of 
the Hon. John B. Skinner of Wyoming. The family circle, in its 
various branches, are conspicuously blended with the history of 
Western New York. 

On the 1st of March, 1803, the town of Batavia having been set 



520 HISTORY OF THE 

off from Northampton, the first town meeting ever held west oi 
Genesee river was convened at the "house of Peter Vandeventer." 
The following town officers were chosen: — 

Supervisor — Peter Vandeventer. 

Town Clerk — David Culley. 

Assessors — Enos Kellogg, Asa Ransom, Alexander Rea. 

Commissioners of Highways — Alexander Rea, Isaac Sutherland, 
Suffrenus Maybee. 

Overseers of the Poor — David Culley, Benjamin Porter. 

Collector — Abel Rowe. 

Constables — John Mudge, Levi Felton, Rufus Hart, Abel Rowe, 
Seymour Kellogg, Hugh Howell. 

Overseers of Highways — Martin Middaugh, Timothy Hopkins, 
Orlando Hopliins, Benjamin Morgan, Rufus Hart, Lovell Churchill, 
Jabez Warren, Wm. Blackman, Samuel Clark, Gideon Dunham, 
Jonathan Willard, Thomas Layton, Hugh Howell, Benjamin Porter, 
Wm. Walsworth. 

Among the few ordinances passed at this primitive town meeting 
— this first gathering of the scattered pioneers — was, that "a 
bounty of #5 should be paid for wolf scalps; half price for whelps; 
and 50 cts. for foxes and wild cats. 

A special town meeting was held at Vandeventers, in Sept., 1803, 
at which it was resolved to petition the legislature for the division 
of the town of Batavia into five towns. 

The next town meeting (in 1804,) was held at the same place. 
Alexander Rea was chosen supervisor, and Isaiah Babcock, town 
clerk. 

An ordinance was passed, imposing a fine of $5 upon any person 
" living in any other county or town, who should drive cattle into 
the town of Batavia to be kept." * It was also ordained that no 
person should be licensed to keep a tavern, who had not a securely 
enclosed yard, sufficiently large to contain all the "sleds, sleighs, 
wagons, carts and other carriages, that he or she may have at his 
or her tavern, at any one time, for entertainment or refreshment." 
A bounty of $5 was voted for "panther's scalps." 

The first election held in the town of Batavia, was at Vandeven- 
ters, in April, 1803. The inspectors certified to the following 
votes. — 

* This was intended to preserve the fine feed upon the openings, on the Lockport 
and Batavia road, for the use of the settlers upon the Purchase, The settlers upon 
tracts adjoining the Purchase on the east, had been in the habit of driving cattle there 
for pasture. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 521 

For Senators — Caleb Hyde, 146; Vincent Matthews, 5. 

For Members of Assembly — Daniel Chapin, 182; Ezra Patterson, 
155; John Swift, 160; Polydore B. Wisner, 4; Nathaniel W. 
Howell, 28; Amos Hall, 9. 

At the second election, held in April, 1804, the vote was as 
follows : — 

For Governor — Morgan Lewis, 111; Aaron Burr, 11. 

For Lieutenant Governor — John Broome, 115; Oliver Phelps, 7. 

For Senators — Jedediah Peck, 113; Henry Huntington, 113; 
Jedediah Sanger, 7; Moses Kent, 7. 

For Members of Assembly — Alexander Rea, 140; Ezra Patter- 
son, 133; Elisha Granger, 133; Daniel W. Lewis, 13; Amos 
Piatt, 9. 

For C'owg-rcss — Silas Halsey, 132; N. W. Howell, 15. 

In June, 1803, the Holland Company having so far completed 
the Court House at Batavia, as to admit of holding the Courts in 
it, the courts of the comity were first organized. The Judges 
were Ezra Piatt, John H. Jones, and Benjamin Ellicott; Nathan 
Perry, was an assistant Justice. Timothy Burt, and Governeur 
Ogden, <' being Attorneys of the Supreme Court; and John Greig, 
Richard Smith, and George Hosmer having been Attorneys of the 
Court of Ontario county," were admitted to practice in" the new 
Court as Attorneys and Counsellors. 

The first Grand Jury west of Genesee river, was organized at 
this term of the Courts. As it was the Pioneer Grand Jury, the 
author gives the names: — 

Alexander Rea, Asa Ransom, Peter Vandeventer, Daniel 
Henry, Samuel F. Geer, Lovell Churchill, Jabez Warren, Zera 
Phelps, Jotham Bemus, Seymour Kellogg, John A. Thompson, 
.Tohn Ganson, Jr., Isaac Smith, Elisha Farwell, Peter Shaeffer, 
Hugh M'Dermott, John M'Naughton, Luther Coe. 

No indictment was found at this term of the Court. 

The Courts convened again in November, 1803; same Judges 
present. Ebenezer F. Norton, Robert W. Stoddard, Jonathan T. 
Haight, John Collins, Daniel B. Brown, Jeremiah R. Munson, were 
admitted to practice as Attorneys. 

The first issue joined in a court of record, west of Genesee 
river, Avas at this term. The parties were Rufus Hart, vs. 
Erasmus Enos. 

An entry made upon the court records at this term, is as 
follows: — "Nathan Perry, assistant justice having withdrawn from 



522 HISTORY OF THE 

the bench, a petition was presented from him for license to keep a 
ferry across the Niagara river, at a place called Black Rock." 

At this term the jail limits for bailed debtors were prescribed. 
They consisted of the side walks of Batavia, "fifteen links wide," 
and several dwellings and yards, to allow the debtors access to board- 
ing houses; in all only about three acres of ground. The unfortu- 
nate debtor had to study a chart to avoid stepping over his bounds. 

The next term of the Courts, was in June, 1804. Nearly half 
of the Grand Jury, were the same persons that served at the pre- 
vious term; as it required freeholders; for such only could serve 
at that early period. At this term an indictment was tried against 
three persons for misdemeanor. The jury was the first traverse 
jury drawn and organized in the new court of record. The names 
were as follows: — 

William Rumsey, Joseph Selleck, Abel Rowe, John Forsyth, 
Benjamin Morgan, Alexander M'Donald, Peter Campbell, James 
Woods, Benjamin Gardner, Lovell Churchill, John Anderson, 
John M'Vean. 

The first jury empannelled in a civil suit, were as follows: — 

Job Pierce, Andrew Wortman, Gilbert Hall, John M'Naughton, 
Isaac Smith, Archileas Whitten, Isaac Sutherland, Samuel Davis, 
Ransom Harmon, Peter Vandeventer, Hugh M'Dermott, Jabez Fox. 

At this term a license was given to Robert Lee, to keep a ferry 
over the Niagara river, at the " north end of the portage or carry- 
ing place." Daniel Curtiss, to keep a ferry on Genesee river, on 
road from Leicester to Geneseo. William G. Sydnor, to keep a 
ferry at the mouth of Cattaragus creek. 

At a Court of Oyer and Terminer, held in June 1 804. Hon. 
Ambrose Spencer presided. The first indictment for an offence in 
which the loss of life had been involved was at this term. The 
indictment was for manslaughter: — The People vs. Joseph 
Rhineberger. The offence was committed in what is now 
Allegany; occured in a drunken frolic. The prisoner was found 
guilty, and sentenced to "States Prison at New York, for 10 
years." He was defended by Judge Howell, Daniel B. Brown 
acting as assistant counsel. The jurors were: — 

John Forsyth, Alexander M'Donald, Daniel M'Pherson, John M'- 
Vean, James Woods, John Anderson, Alexander Thompson, Benja- 
min Morgan, John M'Clanan, Orlando Hopkins, Benjamin Gardner. 

Note. — Name of twelfth Juror not presei-ved. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 523 

At the INovember term of the Courts, in 1805, Samuel Tupper, 
took his seat upon the bench. Josiah Robinson, and James T. 
Johnson, were admitted as Attorneys. Zenos Barker, was 
licensed to keep a ferry across Buffalo creek. This was upon the 
new road that had then just been opened up the Lake; the Pratt 
ferry as it was afterwards called. At the same time, John Crow, 
was licensed to keep a ferry below, to accommodate the travellers 
upon the beach of the Lake. James Barnes, was licensed to keep 
a ferry over the Genesee river, "near the house of Maria Berry.'' 
Benjamin Barton, Jr. was licensed to keep a ferry "between the 
towns of Northampton in the county of Genesee, and Northfield 
in the county of Ontario." 

The first trial in a case of murder, was in June, 1807. Daniel 
D. Tompkins was the presiding Judge. James M'Lean stood 
indicted for the murder of WiUiam Orr. Judge Howell was pris- 
oner's counsel. He "challenged the array," upon the ground that 
))risoner being an alien, he was entitled to be tried by a jury, one 
half of whom were aliens.* The challenge was allowed. The 
jury were as follows: — 

Citizens. — Benjamin Morgan, Ebenezer Cary, Samuel Geer, 
Worthy L. Churchill, John Oney, Daniel Fairbanks. 

Aliens. — Duncan M'Lelland, James M'Lelland, John M'Pherson, 
John M'Vane, Daniel M'Kinney, Patrick Powers. 

The prisoner was found guilty, and sentenced to be hung in 
August, following. 

The murder was committed near Caledonia Springs. M'Lean, 
Orr, and M'Laughlin were squatters on the forty thousand acre tract. 
The three had been together to the Springs, had drank each a glass 
of beer, but M'Lean was not intoxicated. A dispute arose about a 
whitewood tree that Orr had cut on land that M'Lean claimed. 
M'Lean struck Orr down with an axe, killing him at two blows; 
M'Laughlin interfering, met with a fate quite as summary and 
horrid. M'Lean staid that night in a hollow log near his house, 
and the next morning, took to the woods. The alarm was immedi- 
ately spread through all the new settlements west of Genesee river; 
Judge Piatt called out the militia, who were distributed in squads 
and scoured the woods in all directions. After several days the 
fugitive ventured out of the forest, was endeavoring to make his 

* A right then existing by common law, now abolished by statute. 



524 HISTORY OF THE 

escape eastward, when he was recognized at a public house a few 
miles east of Canandaigua, and arrested. 

The circumstance created an intense excitement, in the new 
country, and at the execution of M'Lean the citizens collected at 
Batavia from all the settlements upon the Purchase. Such was the 
curiosity to witness an execution in those early days, that surviving 
pioneers remember that some settlements were almost entirely 
deserted; men women and children, on foot and on horseback, 
wending their way through forest paths, and woods roads, to 
Batavia. 

As the village of Batavia enlarged, new houses were built where 
debtors wished to board, or mechanic shops where they could obtain 
employment, the jail limits were altered. Where a boarding house 
was included, a narrow walk was prescribed to get across to it, 
and access even to privies was prescribed by law and the surveyor's 
compass and chain. Such things once were, strange as they may 
now seem, in these days of a better appreciation of the relations 
and rights of debtor and creditor. 

In all the early years there was considerable litigation, the sums 
involved generally small; seldom exceeding one hundred dollars. 
A large proportion of the indictments were for misdemeanors. 

Once in every year, one of the Judges of the Supreme Court 
would hold a Circuit Court and Court of Oyer and Terminer. 
Revered names occur upon the recoi'ds from time to time: — Living- 
ston, Van Ness, Spencer, Piatt, Yates, Tompkins. And attending 
upon their courts, mostly guests at the old "Keyes House," would 
be the early lawyers: — Howell, Porter, Hosmer, Matthews, Haight, 
Root, Marvin, Brown, Greig, Spencer, Walden; young men then, 
or but in the prime of life. How much of gay repartee, the ready 
joke, the keen encounter of wit, of joyous hilarity has the walk- 
of that old primitive tavern witnessed! There is a long catalogue 
of rich anecdotes of early times, the venues of which are laid there, 
the names of the early lawyers involved. ''Lawyer Root;"' — 
''Alas poor Yorick!" When he would enjoy his joke, or displaj^ 
his wit, it mattered not at whose expense; even the high dignitaries 
of the Supreme Court were not always exempt. He ventured 
upon one occasion to tell one of them that a decision he had made 
was only equalled by a memorable one made by ''Pontius Pilate;" 
and upon another occasion, when the pj'esiding judge of a County 
Court had decided that his conduct was "contemptuous;" he com- 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 525 

plimented the judge by saying, that ''it was a very correct decision, 
— the only correct one he had made in the whole term." 

Robert M. Stoddard was the first Sheriff of Genesee county; and 
David M' Cracken the first Under Sheriff and jailor. James W. 
Stevens was the first county Clerk; James Brisbane was his deputy. 

The first six settlers on Holland Purchase who had deeds recorded 
were : — John Youngs, John Lamberton, William Rumsey, Isaac 
Sutherland, Samuel Geer, Benjamin Morgan. The first public 
library established upon the Holland Purchase, was in November 
1804. A meeting for the purpose was convened at "the house of 
Abel Rowe;" Joseph EUicott was the chairman of the meeting. 
The trustees were Richard Smith, WilHam Rumsey, John Branan, 
Reuben Town, Nathaniel Coleman. 

Ebenezer Mix was appointed deputy clerk of the county, in 
March, 1811. 

Asher Bates succeeded Benjamin Barton, as sheriff, in 1808; 
Aaron Van Cleve succeeded Asher Bates in 1811. 

From a book of miscellaneous records in Genesee county clerk's 
office, the author gathers some reminiscences: — 

In 181 1 a public library was established in Alexander. Alexander 
Rea, Harvey Hawkins, Seba Brainard, Samuel Latham, Henry 
Hawkins, Noah North, Ezra W. Osborn, were the trustees. 

A Protestant Episcopal church was established in Sheldon, in 
1811. The first church wardens were Joshua Mitchell and Fitch 
Chipman; the vestrymen were: — John Rolph, John W. Coleman, 
Seneca Reed, James Case, Philo Welton, James Ward. This was 
the first Episcopal church organized upon the Purchase. Bishop 
Hobart has visited this church when there was no other west of 
Allen's Hill, Ontario county, in his diocess. / 

In 1812, the "Union Religious Society," was estabUshed in 
Warsaw. At the preliminary meeting, Chauncey L. Sheldon acted 
as moderator, and Ezra Walker, as clerk. The trustees appointed 
were: — Isaac Phelps, Abraham Reed, John Munger, William 
Bristol, Zera Tanner, Shubael Goodspeed. 

In 1812, a Baptist church was organized in Sheldon, (now 
Bennington.) Pelatiah Case, Darius Cross, Justin Loomis, Solomon 
King, William W. Parsons, Ezra Ludden, were appointed trustees. 

In 1814, "The Trustees of the Society of Corinth," in Orange- 
ville, was organized. The trustees were Simeon Morse, Putnam 
Cowden, Jonatha,n Coburn, Zoar Blackmor, Noah Merrill. 



526 



HISTORY OF THE 



The Episcopal church at Batavia was organized in 1815. Rev. 
Alanson Welton officiated. John Hickox and Samuel Benedict, 
were first trustees; the first vestrymen were Richard Smith, Isaac 
Sutherland, Isaac Spencer, John Z. Ross, Chauncey Keyes, David 
C. Miller, Aaron Van Cleve, Oswald Williams; Simeon Cummings 
and Trumbul Gary were secretaries of the meeting. 

In 1817, the "First Congregational Society" of the town of 
Batavia, was organized. The first trustees were Lemuel Foster, 
Wm. H. Bush, Horace Gibbs. The Rev. Calvin C. Colton, the since 
well known author, was one of the earliest ministers of this church. 

The following list embraces the names, generally of the first six, 
(sometimes more and sometimes less,) of the persons who took 
contracts, and in most instances, became pioneer settlers, in all the 
townships upon the Holland Purchase, in which no contracts were 
taken previous to Jan. 1st., 1807. * 



Ellicottville. 

1818. 
Baker Leonard, 
Stephen Webb, Jr. 
Alvin Leavenworth, 
James Reynolds, 
Moses Chamberlin, 
Abel P. Wightraan, 
David Goodwin, 
Lathrop Vinton, 
John A. Bryan. 

Barcelona. 
Lyman Middington, 
James Ray, 
Silas Spencer, 
M. M'Clintock, 
James B. Longhead, 
Dyer Carver, 
James Farnsworth, 
George M. Fowl, 
James Post. 

T. 1, R. 1. 
1821. 
Hiram Lowell, 
Austin Cowles, 
Christopher Tyler. 
Asa Cowles, 
Zephaniah Smith, 
Levi Appleby. 

T. 2, R. 1. 

1810. 
Chauncy Axtell, 



T. 2, R. 1. 

1810. 
Azel Buckley, 
John Hopkins, 
Hyra Axtell, 
Daniel Willard. 

T. 14, R. 1. 

1812. 
Oliver Benton, 
Stephen Paine, 
Philip Bonesteel, 
Nathan Angel, 
Asa Billings, 
James Healey. 

T. 15, R. 1. 

1808. 
John Barrett, 
Elliott Barrett, 
Isaac Bennett, 
Samuel Crippen, 
Henry Drake, 
Moses Bacon, 
Clarkson F. Brooks, 
John Proctor. 

T. 2, R. 2. 

1821. 
James Reed, 
Hiram Hill, 

Abraham VanNess, 
Clark Lewis, 
Elijah Seaver, 
Daniel Seaver 



T. 5, R. 2. 

1808. 
Charles Swift, 
Eneas Garey, 
Othniel Pern,', 
William Vaughan, 
Andro Bennett, 
Joshua Wilson. 

T. 6, R. 2. 

1S08. 
Joseph Maxson. 
Russell Thrall, 
Thomas Clute, 
Strong Warner, 
David Gelatt, 
Samuel Webster. 

T. 7, R. 2. 

1808. 
John J. Drake, 
Silas Hodges, 
Sylvanus Eldridge, 
Alpheus Bascom, 
William Adams, 
James Waldron, 
Dan Beach. 

T. 8, R. 2. 
1809. 
Erastus Richards, 
Jason Smith, 
Joel S. Smith, 
Peter Lott, 



* With the exception of lands that were donated by the Holland Company to the 
Canal fund, and such townships as were sold at wholesale. 

N^OTE. — The year indicates the period when first contract was taken in the township. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 



527 



r. 8, R. 2. 
1809. 
Ebenezer Tyrrill, 
Gideon Bently. 

T. 14, R. 2. 
1813. 
Gregfory Storm, 
Selah Belden, 
Christopher Paine, 
Bela Benton, 
Abraham Matteson, 
John Doak. 

T. 15, R. 2. 
1809. 
Andrew Jacox, 
Whitfield Rathbun, 
William Sibley, 
Cotton M. Leach. 
Noah Burgess, 
James Mather 
Henry Luce. 

T. 2, R. 3. 
1813. 
James Haskins, 
Israel Curtis 
Joel Wakefield, 
Rodolphus Scott, 
Joseph Smith, 
Alfred Dodge. 

T. 3, R. 3. 
1807. 
Jotham Blakesley, 
Barnabas Strong, 
John Brooks, 
Samuel Kimball, 
Asa Folsom, 
Simeon Hicks. 

T. 5, R. 3. 
1811. 
Gideon Lewis, 
Ezekiel Runals, 
Samuel Blancher, 
Benjamin Jenks, Jr. 
William Parks. 
Peter Ten Broek, 
George Park. 

T. 6, R. 3. 
1810. 
Warren Stanley, 
Enoch Hewlett, 
Ezekiel D. Runals, 
Rufus Metcalf, 
Earl Sawyer, 
Jonas Iriah. 

T. 7, R. 3. 

1808 
John Nichols, 
Silas Me£ch, 
Amasa Kilbourn, 
Samuel Nichols, 
Abraham Jackson, 
Porter Belknap. 



T. 8, R. 3. 
1809. 
Samuel Coleman, 
Joshua Gates, 
David Woolcott, 
Erastus Wells, 
Guy Morgan, 
Abraham C. Hollenbeck. 

T. 13, R. 3. 
1810. 
Jesse Lund, 
David Gar}', 
Charles Bliss, 
Levi Smith, 
John S. Wolcott, 
Nathan M'Cumber. 

T. 14, R. 3. 
1810. 
Andrew A Ellicott, 
Orange Wells, 
Leonard Dresser, 
Zeno Ross, 
Champion Wells, 
Abel P. Sheldon, 
Joel Briggs. 

T, 15, R. 3. 
1810. 
Israel Douglass. 
Eli Moore, 
Ezra D. Barnes, 
Cyrus Daniels, 
Elijah Hawley, 
Thomas Hawley. 

T. 16, R. 3. 
Preserved Greenman, 
John Eaton, 
George Housman, 
Darius Knickerbocker. 
Giles Slater. 
John Wallis, 
Elisha Sawyer. 

T. 7, R. 4. 
1813. 

Silas Knight, 
Cornelius Van Orsdal, 
Guy C. Irving, 
Rufus Wetherbee, 
RoUin Pratt. 

T. 3, R. 4. 

1813. 
Lewis Wood, 
Seymour Bouton, 
Julius Underwood, 
Emer,- Wood. 

T. 6, R 4. 

1809. 
Aquilla Robbins, 
Joseph Edminster Jr., 
Seth Pratt, 
Elisha Daggett, 
Joseph Franklin. 



T. 7, R. 4. 
1809. 
Abner Bump, 
Abraham Jackson, 
Leonard Parker, 
Silas Parker, 
Jacob Jackson, 
Simeon Wells, 
Walter Hinckly, 
Abraham Smith. 

T. 8, R. 4. 
1811. 
Timothy Kirby, 
Daniel H. Wooster, 
Amasa Joslyn, 
James Hall, 
Leonard J. Paul, 
Orrin Waters. 

T. 11, R. 4. 

1807. 
William Humphrey, 
Emery Blodgett, 
Joshua Bailey, 
Josiah Lee 
Rufus Kidder, 
Amos Humphrey, 
David Long. 

T. 13, R. 4. 

1822. 
Benjamin Patterson, 
Solomon Force, 
Augustus L. Barton, 
Joseph Barber, 
Ezra N. Russell. 

T. 14, R. 4. 

1809. 
Alexander Coon, 
Samuel C. Wells, 
Joseph Hagaman, 
Elijah Bent, 
Ezekiel Bentley, 
Joshua Park, 
Eleazer Frary, 
David Demaray. 

T. 15, R. 4. 

1810. 
Boaz Lambson, 
Seymour Murdock, 
Jonathan Cobb, 
Bostion Weatherwax, 
Amos Barritt, 
John F. Hunt, 
Israel Murdock. 

T. 16, R. 4. 

1815. 
Zebediah Heath, 
Jemisou Henry, 
William Weaver, 
Thomas Stafford, 
Reuben Peck, 
Zenas Conger. 



528 



HISTORY OF THE 



T 1, R. 5. 

1823. 
Bareck Clark, 
James Townsend Jr, 
Calvin Pratt. 

T. 2, R. 5. 

1820. 
Andrew B. Northrop, 
David Orton, 
James Green, 
Andrew Allen, 
Isaac Eggleston. 

T. 3, R. 5. 

1815. 
Russell Chapell, 
Henry Willsy, 
Thomas Barber, 
William Baxter, 
Oliver Marsh. 

T. 6, R. 5. 

1810. 
Major Evans, 
Morton Crosby, 
Betheul Bishop, 
John Johnson, 
Dennis Riley, 
Benjamin Felch. 

T. 7, R. 5. 
1809. 
Sumner Warren, 
William L. Warren, 
Ira P. Paine, 
Ebenezer Warren, 
Ezra Nott. 

T. 8, R. 5. 
1807. 
Abner Carrier, 
Arthur Humphrey, 
Ezekiel Colby, 
Jared Scott, 
Timothy Fuller, 
Asa Jones. 

T. 11, R. 5. 

1808. 
Jonas Varney, 
Zopher Beach, 
Samuel Huntington, 
Ephraim Salmon, 
James Harvey. 

T. 13, R. 5. 

1810. 
Clark Beach, 
William B. Smith, 
Semar Sinclear, 
Nathan Bradley, 
Silas Pratt, 
Lawrence M'Mullen, 
Patrick Grace. 



T. 16, R. 5. 
1809. 
Daniel Kemp, 
Jacob Fitts, 
John Landers, 
Henry Palmer, 
Hezekiah Brace, 
Dorastus Chapman. 
T. 3, R. 6. 
1811. 
Daniel M'Kay, 
Laurin Norton, 
Orlando C. Fuller, 
Elijah Gibbs, 
Abraham Searle, 
Alexander Wood. 

T. 4, R. 6. 
1813. 
. Ricketson Burlingam, 
Harvey B. Hays, 
Archalaus Brown, 
Orrin Brown, 
Amos lugalls. 
Grove Hurlbut. 

T. 5, R. 6. 
1816. 
William Shultz, 
George Shultz, 
Andrew Frank, 
Daniel Oyer, 
Benjamin Rhoads, 
Marsena Rhoads. 

T. 6, R. 6. 
1807. 
Christopher Stone, 
George Richmond, 
Calvin Doolittle, 
Samuel Cockran, 
Joseph Yaw, Jr. 
Benjamin Douglas. 

T. 7, R. 6. 
1808. 
John Albro, 
Stephen Pratt. 
Luther Hibbard, 
James Vaughan, 
Lemuel Cooper, 
Luther Curtis. 

T. 8, R. 6. 
1819, 
Richard BufFum, 
Stephen Southwick, 
Lodowick Owen, 
Sylvester Owen, 
Richard Bowen, 
Martin Sprague. 

T. 13, R. 6. 

1810. 
Aaron Crego, 
John Stranahan, 
Abraham Flagg. 



T. 13, R. 6 
1810. 
Palmer Utley, 
Daniel Hamlin, 
John M. Cole. 

T. 4, R. 7. 
1818. 
Benjamin Chamberlin, 
Nathaniel Fish, 
Lathrop Vinton, 
Edmund Kemp, 
Zina Finton, 
Timothy Morgan. 

T. 4, R. 7. 
1816 
Elisha Hicks, 
Daniel Kelly, 
Philip Bonesteel, 
Hiram Wells, 
Ephraim Rolph. 
Jabez Hull. 

T. 6, R. 7. 
1809. 
William Smith, 
Ephraim Hall, 
Samuel Hill, 
Peter Pratt, 
Stephen Peters, 
Isaac Belot, 
Samuel Nichols. 

T. 7, R. 7 
1809. 
John Stewart, 
Amasa Ashman, 
Solomon Field, 
Thomas M'Gee, 
Lyman Drake, 
Smith Russell. 

T. 13, R. 7 
1808. 
George Van Slyke, 
Peter Taylor, 
Peter Conley, 
Silas Pratt, 
David Sprague, 
Abraham Miller, 

T. 2, R. 8. 
1819. 
Artemas Houghton, 
Philip Tome, 
Jesse Hotchkiss, 
Isaac Dow, 
Milton Holmes. 

T. 3, R. 8. 
1819. 
Harlow Butler, 
Gurdon Cheesbrough 
Timothy Boardman, 
Asa Watson, 
Sargeant Morrill, 
William Foy. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 



529 



T. 4, R. 8. 
1816. 
Samuel Blanchard, 
James Godard, 
A. Smith Waterman, 
David Hammond, Jr. 
Jonathan Kennecutt, 
Paul Harvey. 

T. 5, R. 8. 

1820. 
Abel M. Butler, 
John Beverly, 
Isaac W. Skinner, 
Job Mick, 
Barnard Cook, 
Chester Cook. 

T. 6, R. 8. 
1816. 
Jacob Taylor, 
Abraham GiUord, 
Nathaniel Rawson, 
Peter Boss, 
Luke Crandall, - 
Charles M. Barden. 

T. 7, R. 8. 

1809. 
Sylvester Hussey, 
Isaac Hathaway, 
Thomas Bills, 
Moses Eddy, 
George Southwick, 
Nathaniel Sisson, 
Abram Tucker. 

T 13, R. 8 

1807. 
Edward Smith, 
Marvin Judd, 
Daniel Judd, 
Ozias Judd, 
Solomon Wolcott, 
Thomas Whiles, 
Benjamin Graham. 

T. 15, R. 8. 

1810. 
Benjamin Burgess, 
^.Abner Baley, 
" Stephen Sheldon, 
Cyrus Coats, 
David Wood, 
Martin Sparbeck, 
George G. Scrafford. 
Garritt Gray. 

T. 1. R. 9. 

1821. 
Alexander Van Horn, 
George Fenton, 
Joseph Russell, 
Reuben Owens, 
Mathias Bovee, 
William Sprague. 

34 



T. 2, R. 9. 

1821. 
Howard Fuller, 
James Powell, 
Samuel J. York, 
William Eames, 
Howard Chapman, 
Thomas Hovey, 
Edmund Fuller. 

T. 3, R. 9. 

1815. 
WilUam Sears, 
Edmund Mullett, 
Daniel Philips, 
Harry Davidson, 
Peter Blanchard, 
Rufus Wyllys. 

T. 4, R. 9. 

1818, 
Edmund Dudley, 
James Franklin, 
James Franklin, Jr. 
John Dye, 
Nathaniel Cooper, 
Nathan Skinner, 
Asher Glover, 
Harlow Beach. 

T. 5, R. 9. 

1810. 
Sherebiah Lee, 
Moses Morgan, 
William Read, 
Simeon Bunce, 
Reuben Pitcher, 
Ambrose C. Ford. 

T. 6, R. 9 

1815. 
John Clark, 
Benjamin Waterman, 
Joseph Browne], 
Joseph Weeks, 
Elder Moses, 
John Thatcher, 
Frederick Bentley. 

T. 8, R. 9. 
1809. 
Adoniram Eldridge, 
Anderson Taylor, 
Aaron Salisbury, 
Martin Sprague, 
Gideon Dudley, 
Sylvester Maybee. 

T. 1, R. 10. 

1809. 

Abiel Walton, 
Robert Russell, 
Thomas Russell, 
John True, 
George Sloan, 
Charles Bills. 



T. 2, R. 10 

1807. 
Thomas R. Kennedy, 
Stephen Radley, 
John Owen, 
James Culverson, 
Gideon Gilson, 
John Brown, 
Abraham Tupper. 

T. 3, R. 10 
1815. 
John Love Jr., 
James Battles, 
Frederick Love, 
James Bates, 
Moses White, 
Roswell Kenney. 

T. 4, R. 10. 
1815 
Isaac Curtis, 
James Marks, 
Joshua Bentley, 
Gurdon Crandell, 
Elisha Wilcox, 
Jonathan Andrews, 
Barber Babcock. 

T. 5, R. 10. 
1809. 
Ezra Puffer, 
John Kent, 
Daniel Whipple, 
Samuel Hoppin, 
Nathaniel Bown, 
Calvin Collins, 
Svlvester Morris. 

T. 1, R. II. 
1808 
Robert Russell, 
Benjamin Dyer, 
James Akin, 
Joseph Akin, 
Ebenezer Cheeney, 
Nathan Lazell. 

T. 2, R. 11. 
1807. 
Eleazer Crocker, 
Edward Shillitto, 
William Wilson, 
Thomas Bemis, 
Jonas Seman, 
Dyer Nichols. 

T. 3, R. 11. 
1809. 
Amos Aikin, 
Seth Cole Jr., 
Stephen Jones Jr., 
William Gilmore, 
Orrin Adkins, 
Samuel Sinclear. 

T. 4, R. 11 
1809. 
Daniel Picket, 



530 



HISTORY OF THE 



T. 4, R. 11. 

1809. 
Asa Duran, 
Seth Richardson, 
Barnabas Cole, Jr. 
Arva O. Austin, 
John Picket, 
Joseph Arnold. 

T. 5, R. 11. 

1809. 
Othello Church, 
Urial Johnson, 
Augustus Burnham, 
Abiram Orton, 
Chauucey Roberts, 
Horace Clough. 

T. 1, R. 12. 
1810. 
Josiah Carpenter, 
Heman Williams, 
John J. Gibb, 
William Harris, 
Nathaniel Fenner, 
Jonas Lamphear. 

T. 3, R. 12. 
1809. 
John Thompson, 
Darius Sumner, 
Joshua Woodward, 
John Hemot, 
William Armstrong, 
Orrin Strong, 
Robert Dodge, 
Thomas Bemis. 

T. 4, R. 12. 
1809. 
Jonathan Alverson, 



T. 4, R. 12. 

1809. 
Samuel Newell, 
Samuel Berry, 
Benjamin Miller, 
Silas Gates, 
Shadrack Scofield, 
Peleg Redfield. 

T. 1, R. 13. 

1811. 
Israel Carpenter, 
Joseph S. Pember, 
Joseph Wall, 
Robert Chappell, 
Stephen Grover, 
Ezekiel Griswold, 
Isaac Carpenter. 

T. 2, R 13. 

1807 
Elisha Phillips, 
Josiah Carpenter, 
Willian Forbes, 
John Thompson, 
Mathew Nealj-, 
Joseph Prendergast 
Josiah Phelps, 

T. 4, R. 13. 

1809. 
John Pratt, 
Jonathan Frost, 
Rufus Frost, 
Russel Morgan, 
John Dexter, 
Philo Hopson, 
Ira W. Couch. 



T. 3, R. 14. 

1810. 
Amos Thomas, Jr. 
Robert Dickson, 
Artemas Herrick, 
Anselm Potter, — 
Samuel Jeraison, 
John Daggett, 
Caleb Hamilton. 

T. 4, R. 14, 

1810. 
John M'Mahan, 
John Dull, 
Nathan S. Roberts, 
Hugh Whitehall, 
Jonn Allen, 
Robert Sweet, 
William Thurstan. 

T. 1, R. 15 

1812. 
Roswell Coe, 
Amos Beebe, 
Alanson Root, 
Abraham Pier, 
Ande Nobles, 
Aaron Barney, 
Daniel Frisbee, 
George Hascall. 

T. 2, R. 15. 

1811. 
Alexander Findley, 
Artemas Stowell, 
Francis Smith, 
Benjamin E. Spear, 
Nathan Thompson, 
Elijah Drury. 



[The reminiscences of pioneer settlement have so far in the main, 
been applicable to the first six years after land sales commenced. 
Those that will follow, will generally embrace the period from Jan 
1, 1807, to the war of 1812; though in some instances, be extended 
along through the war, and up to 1820.] 

Settlement upon the Purchase was rapid after the expiration of 
the first six years, and up to the commencement of the war. Gen- 
erally, when a pioneer had entered a new township, others soon 
followed, though there were many instances, where one, two and 
three families, were for several years isolated, their wilderness 
neighborhoods long and dreary miles away from any considerable 
settlements. In early years the geographical designations almost 
throughout the entire Purchase were made by the use of ths term, 
"Settlements;" the name of the settlement, that of the first or 
most prominent pioneer settler. When there was but one, and 



^ HOLLAND PURCHASE. 531 

afterwards, when there were but four and five towns upon the entire 
Purchase, the detached neighborhoods, were necessarily thus dis- 
tinguished. 

The progress of settlement in the first nine years, will be very 
distinctly indicated by the number of land sales made in each year: 
— In 1801, they were 40; in 1802, 56: in 1803, 230; in 1804, 300; 
in 1805, 415; in 1806, 524; in 1807, 607; in 1808, 612; in 1809, 
1160. 

A brief reference has already been made to the early settlements 
in Genesee and Wyoming. The narrative of Mr. Wilder and 
others, embraces some of the earhest advents in that quarter. 

The pioneer settlers of Alexander have been noticed. The first 
framed house in town was erected by John and Samuel Latham, in 
1810. A grist mill was erected by WiUiam Adams in 1807; the 
first death was of a man by the name of Whitting, in 1804; the first 
religious meeting was held in 1805, Elder Burton presiding. Two 
of the early citizens of the town, Jacob Seymour, and Sew- 
ard, were killed in the war of 1812. Henry Hawkins was the 
first merchant; Charles Chaffee, the first physician; the first mar- 
riage, was of Benjamin Moulton and Eunice Olney. The first 
school was organized in 1807; the first church, built in 1828. 
Among the early settlers of the town, there were: — Rodolphus 
Hawkins, Harvey Hawkins, Henry Hawkins, Rensselaer Hawkins, 
Elijah Root, Jr., Lillie Fisher, Royal Moulton, Ezekiel Lewis, Seba 
Brainard, Timothy Hawkins, Stephen Day, John Riddle, Caleb 
Blodgett, Emory Bloodgett, William Parish, Ezekiel Churchill. 

The Hawkins family came in along in 1804 and up to 1808; were 
enterprising and successful; known in long years as prosperous 
farmers and merchants. They were generally of strong, robust 
constitutions; but disease and death entered the family circle, and 
in the short space of two years, five of the prominent members of 
it, died. Henry Hawkins, (formerly a State Senator,) died Oct. 
1845; and Harvey but two weeks after; both, of the small pox. 
It is worthy of remark, that both when young had the small pox 
by inoculation. The father, (Rodolphus,) died in June, 1847, his 
wife in October following, and about the same time, Van Rensselaer. 
Among the bequests made by Henry Hawkins, was the endowment 
of the Genesee and Wyoming Seminary, located at Alexander, with 
the sum of $5000, in addition to the donation of the building, grounds 
and furniture. 



532 HISTORY OF THE 

In reference to early times in Attica and its neighborhood, the 
author adds to what has already been given, some reminiscences 
obtained from Roswell Gardner, Esq. who settled there in 1809. 
The oldest resident is Eliphalet Hodges. He was a settler in 1805; 
is now 86 years old. When he built his log house it took all the 
able bodied men in the neighborhood, and there then were not enough 
to finish raising in one day. The first born in town, was Harriet, 
daughter of Zera Phelps. The early name of Attica was "Phelp's 
Settlement." Parmenio and Dan Adams were among the early 
settlers. Parmenio was Sheriff of Genesee county for two terms; 
twice elected to Congress. He died in 1822 or '23. Dan who 
was a Lieutenant in the company of grenadiers commanded by 
Capt. Seth Gates of Sheldon, was killed at the battle of Queenston 
Heights. 

The pioneer settlers along up the creek between Attica and 
Varysburg, were, Joseph Munger, Joel Maxon, Benjamin Nelson. 
John Bogart. 

The earliest physicians in the neighborhood were Dr. Nathaniel 
Eastman and his son, Dr. Hezekiah Eastman; the first settled 
minister was Elder Cheeny. 

Paul Richards, Esq. of Orangeville, was a settler in that town 
as early as 1811. He says there were then from forty to fifty 
families in the town. 

In few towns upon the Purchase, have the pioneer settlers had 
to contend with more formidable difficulties. Well does the author 
remember, when there, as in Sheldon and Bennington, they were 
dotted around in the forest, miles of impassable roads intervening, 
(or in many instances none but woods paths,) — with a few acres 
cleared around them, the dense and towering forests, of hemlock, 
beech and maple, reminding them of how much there was yet for 
their hands to do — enough, in prospective to appal even stout 
hearted men; — and it was a source of no unaffected gratification, 
to see after an absense of long years, that there too, as well as in 
all the rest of this favored region, the substantial comforts of life, 
were rewarding the toils of the pioneer adventurers. An early 
pioneer of Orangeville ; one who has swung his axe among its sturdy 
hemlocks; ended his life in Buffalo, a few years since, at the head 
of a banking institution he had founded.* 

*01iver Lee, Esq. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 533 

It will be new perhaps to most readers, to learn that there was 
one attempt upon the Holland Purchase, to subdue the forest with 
slave labor. Two of the early settlers of Orangeville, Joshua 
Mitchell and Adiel Sherwood,* married the daughter of a Mrs. 
Wood, from Maryland, who came into the country with them, 
bringing ten slaves. Involuntary servitude proved a difficult anom- 
aly in the backwoods of the Holland Purchase. The moral sense 
of the new settlers was manifested, as was alledged, by encoura- 
ging the negroes to escape from time to time; prosecutions were 
instituted against one or two of the neighbors. In the end most of 
the slaves liberated themselves. It was no difficult matter for them 
to walk over to Canada, or in fact, in almost any direction the) 
chose to go. One of the last of the lot was sold to Mr. Keyes 
of Batavia, and will be remembered as the only dark feature in the 
history of that very respectable pioneer tavern, to which allusion 
has before been made. 

Alba Williams, an early settler of Orangeville, was chopping in 
the woods; his wife started out to make an afternoon's visit at a 
neighbor's house, taking her child in her arms. Toward evening 
the husband went to accompany her home, and in crossing a log 
bridge over a small stream, discovered his wife and child lying 
upon their faces in the water, both dead. It was supposed that 
Mrs. W. had gone to the edge of the stream to wash the face of 
her child, and while in the act of doing so, was attacked with a fit, 
fell forward, her face becoming sufficiently immersed in the water 
to produce suffocation; the child sharing her fate. 

Ormus and Reuben Doolittle, though not settlers upon the 
Holland Purchase, until 1820, were prominent, enterprising and 
early residents at Weathersfield Springs. John W. Perry, David 
Rood, Daniel Woicott, were previous residents there. The names 
of the two brothers, and their various well directed enterprises, 
involves a seeming paradox. They have been farmers, merchants, 
lumbermen, and woolen manufacturers. A neat Episcopal church, 
and parsonage — cost $5000 — was built at their expense; as was a 
school house, which they kept in repair ten years, and sold to the 
district. Reuben Doolittle died while on a visit to IlUnois in 184G; 
he was the father of James R. Doolittle, Esq. of Warsaw. Ormus 
Doolittle is still carrying on various branches of business, in the 

•Afterwards, the founder of tlie Sherwood tavern stand, five miles cast of Buffalo. 



534 HISTORY OF THE 

pleasant rural village, which the two brothers have done so much 
to build up. 

Benjamin Bancroft, was the first, and is still the resident 
physician at the Springs. 

Joel S. Smith, an early tavern keeper, drover, merchant and 
I'armer — an enterprising and valuable citizen, is still a resident in 
the south part of Weathersfield. 

Wheelock Wood, after having been a pioneer east of the river — 
settling where the Lima Seminary stands, in 1795 — ^became a resi- 
dent at Gainsville, in 1807; from his son, Lewis Wood, the author 
derived some reminiscences of that region. In 1807, all the dwell- 
ings of the pioneers there, were built of logs and covered with 
bark; floors and doors of split plank; there was but a wood's road 
from Warsaw to Gainsville. A saw mill was built by the Woods, in 
1809, on Allan's creek. Mr. Wood mentions the fact that he was 
collector of the town of Gainsville in 1812; the whole tax was but 
$350. 

In an early day (the year not recollected,) Wheelock Wood, 
erected a saw mill on Deep Gulley creek, (within the limits of 
Rochester, or near the north line of the city.) The mill was 
abandoned for the reason that it was so sickly in that region that 
no one would reside there to tend it. 

While Mr. Wood resided east of the river, he carried hay and 
sold it to new settlers upon the Holland Purchase, as far west as 
Vandeventer's. 

Roger Mills was the prominent pioneer settler of Hume; built 
saw mill and grist mill on the Wiscoy. The village of Cold Creek 
grew up on lands included in his purchase. C. G. Ingham, Charles 
Mather, Sylvanus Harmon, Ira Higby, Joseph Balcom, were early 
settlers at Cold Creek. The first school there, was in 1823; the 
first physician, Joseph Balcom; first settled minister. Rev. Oliver 
Reed. C. G. Ingham, kept the first tavern at Cold Creek; com- 
mencing in 1823, and still continuing at the same stand. He was 
the first P. M. The mail route from Angelica to Warsaw, was 
established in 1826: first mail contained one letter and no 
newspaper. 

Joseph Maxson, was the pioneer of the town of Centreville, and 
his advent into the wilderness is well worthy of notice. Leaving 
his native place, (Hartwick, Otsego Co.) when but eighteen years 
old, he arrived at Pike in April, 1808. Two cents in money, a few 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 535 

articles of provisions, and a scanty wardrobe, constituted the 
worldly wealth of our young adventurer. Taking a new pair of 
shoes from his feet, he bartered them for an axe, and pushed into 
the wilderness, miles away from any habitation. Selecting his 
land, he erected a rude shanty, and to supply bed and bedding, 
pealed basswood bark, using one piece to separate himself from the 
cold ground, and another for covering. The snow fell to the depth 
of six inches, after he fixed himself in his new home. He spent 
eight months solitary and alone. It is noted on the books of the 
land office that he had five acres cleared, July 22, 1808; at which 
date, he had his land "booked" to him, paying nothing down. It is 
presumed that he had only chopped down the timber and burned 
the brush. He raised the first season, a few bushels of corn and 
potatoes, and in the fall sowed two acres of wheat. 

Success rewarded the extraordinary efforts of the young pioneer. 
He became an early tavern keeper, the owner of a large, well 
improved farm; and seUing out, was a short time since, building 
mills in Wisconsin. He has preserved as relics of his early advent 
upon the Holland Purchase, the axe that he got in exchange for 
his shoes; one of the cents that has been named; one kernel of the 
seed corn he procured to plant in 1808; and an old wooden fan with 
which he cleaned the first wheat raised in the town of Centreville. 

Mr. Carpenter built the first framed house in Centreville; 

James Ward the first framed barn, and planted the first orchard. 
John Griffith officiated at the first religious meeting; Sparrow 
Smith was the first merchant; Calvin Cass the first physician. 

The town of Rushford was set off from Canadea in the year 1816. 
[For early settlers, see T. 5, R. 2.] William Gordon and Sampson 
Hardy, were early pioneers in addition to those named in the list. 
The first saw mill was built by M. P. Cady and others, in 1816; 

the first grist mill, by Warren in 1813. * The early miller 

was drowned in 1815, while in the act of mending his mill dam. 
James M'Call was the first merchant; commencing the business in 
1816; his store was the first framed building in town. D. J. Board 
established the first blacksmith shop. The first church organiza- 
tion was that of the Baptists and Methodists, in 1817. The 
Baptists built a meeting house in 1817, the Methodists, in 1819. 

* It was a small concern; the bolting clotlis were made of book muslin. The upper 
stone was upon a spindle which was at the end of the shaft of a tub wheel; no interme- 
diate geanig. 



536 HISTORY OF THE 

It is a fact that tells much for the moral character of the citizens of 
Rushford, thai, for the space of fifteen years, no indictable offence 
was committed in the town. The mail route was established from 
Perry to Clean, in 1816; Levi Benjamin was the first P. M. at 
Rushford. 

The venerable Judge James M'Call, the early merchant, who 
has been for a considerable period, a state senator, and filled many 
other important public offices, may perhaps be regarded as the 
patroon of the village of Rushford; conspicuous in the various 
enterprises that have contributed to its prosperity; his life has been 
an exemplary and useful one. He still survives; having reached 
his 74th year. He has reared a family of thirteen children, twelve 
of whom are married and settled; and has in all, over forty living 
descendants. 

From some reminiscences the author has in his possession, he is 
enabled to glean a fact highly creditable to the subject of the above 
brief notice: — After the almost entire loss of the small crops of the 
new settlers, in the cold season of 1816, there, as in most of the 
new settlements upon the Purchase, extreme scarcity of provisions 
prevailed. The Judge owning a mill, controlled all the grain in the 
neighborhood, except a little corn that the Indians had upon the 
Canadea reservation; and his monopoly was kindly exercised. — 
He gave his miller orders to sell to no one man over forty pounds 
of flour or meal; and not to sell any to those who had teams, and 
the means of procuring bread stuff' by going out to the older settle- 
ments after it. And when his supplies became reduced, he restiucted 
the amount to be sold to any one man, to twenty pounds. In this 
way, the poorest and most destitute of the new settlers were 
carried along until the harvest of 1817. 

The Erie Canal has been a work diffusive in its benefits, and 
yet its opening had the effect, temporarily, to create depression, 
and retard the settlement of the southern portion of the Holland 
Purchase. As has been before observed, the current of emigration 
to the west, was transferred from the main roads that led to the 
navigable waters of the Allegany river, to the canal and the lakes. 
A brisk travel and transportation suddenly ceased; Clean ceased to 
be a market for produce; in fact, all the local advantages that are 
derived from great thoroughfares, were lost. This, added to the 
financial crisis of 1818 and '19, and cold untoward seasons, almost 
brought settlement to a stand; there were times when farms in the 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 537 

western portion of Allegany, and southern portion of Cattaraugus, 
with fifty acres of improvements, would not bring two hundred 
dollars over and above the original purchase money. A large 
proportion of the settlers abandoned the idea of paying for their 
lands, and stopped improvements; many left the country, and more 
would have done so, could they have realized enough for their 
improvements, to pay the expenses of emigration. 

In 1822 and '23 the gloomy prospect began to change; the Holland 
Company reduced the price of lands, began to pay liberal prices for 
cattle ; and it was not long before the southern portion of the Pur- 
chase, in various ways, began to feel the effects of the prosperity, to 
which the Erie Canal had given so powerful an impetus, in its more 
immediate neighborhood. 

The wolves made it difficult to keep sheep in all early days, in 
Allegany and Cattaraugus. In these as well as many other counties 
of the state, large bounties were paid for wolf scalps. It was with 
reference to those counties and several others in the northern por- 
tion of the state, that Gen. Root, in proposing a large increase of 
bounty, said, that "the British and the wolves had entered into 
a combination against American manufactures, and for one, I wish to 
break it up." 

Elder Nathan Peck, was an early missionary in Allegany and 
Cattaraugus; and the indefatigable "Father Spencer" found his way 
to the log cabins of the early settlers about as soon as they were 
dotted, here and there, in the dense forest; partaking with the pio- 
neers their humble fare, and reminding them that their wilderness 
homes were not beyond the pale of civilization, or the wanderings 
of the faithful and searching missionary. 

It will surprise those who are not already acquainted with the 
curious fact, to learn that there is a spot upon the Holland Purchase, 
where the speckled trout, passes from the waters of the Gulf of 
St. Lawrence, to those of the Gulf of Mexico, and vice vei^scu 
About six miles from Rushford, on the Olean road, in the town of 
New Hudson, the head waters of the Canadea and Oil creeks 
approach each other, and in freshets, mingle; affording the facility 
for the trout to pass over the dividing ridge. 

Deacon Solomon Rawson, was the pioneer settler in Linden. 
An emigrant from Pennsylvania, he came in from the south, and 
settled on the Olean road, seven miles south-west of Rushford. 
He opened a woods road to Rushford. His house was often thrown 



538 HISTORY OF THE 

open to accomodate the emigrants when they began to pass on that 
road to Olean. He raised the first crops; a daughter of his was 
the first born in town. The first preacher in the neighborhood was 
the Rev. Mr. Hubbard. The first church organized in Linden, 
was of the order of Free-will Baptists; the first physician, was Dr. 
Hotchkiss. Deacon Rawson says there was much suffering for 
food among the new settlers in 1817 and '18; flour was from $11 
to #16 pr. barrel; pork, 25 cts. pr. lb.; many of the poorer class of 
new settlers subsisted on milk, boiled greens, and leeks. 

The traveler who passes over the road from Rushford to Cuba, 
will have his attention arrested soon after he first strikes the head 
waters of Oil Creek, by a cluster of neat farm buildings, in the 
centre of a highly cultivated farm; the whole nestling rurally and 
quietly amid the surrounding hills. It is where the venerable 
pioneer we have introduced, first broke into the wilderness, and 
where he still lives to enjoy the rewards of his early toils and 
privations. 

Four miles from Deacon Rawson's, toward Cuba, on Oil creek, 
two settlers located soon after 1808, but the prominent settler in 
that vicinity, was Col. Samuel Morgan, who located there in 1811, 
and became the founder of a public house, that was widely known 
in all early years. He was an enterprising, useful pioneer. He 
died in 1845. 

The land which embraces the site of Cuba village, was originally 
purchased by James Strong, in 1817. Gen. Calvin T. Chamberlin 
settled two miles from the village, in 1816; he built the first saw 
mill in town in 1817. Stephen Cady and Jacob Baldwin, built saw 
mill and grist mill in 1822, two miles above the village. 

Judge John Griffin was an early and prominent citizen of Cuba, 
locating there in 1820, and becoming the purchaser of the village 
site. There are few who have not heard anecdotes of the eccentric 
Judge. He was a man of unusual muscular power; tall, fearless, 
generous, with more than ordinary native intellect; enterprising 
and public spirited. In the war of 1812, (then a citizen of Ontario 
county,) he organized a corps of troops, and went out under 
Smyth's proclamation. He was a senator from the 8th district, 
previous to 1836, and for several years, one of the Judges of 
Allegany. He died in Cuba, in 1845, where his family now reside. 

The founding of Cuba village commenced in 1835. In that year, 
Stephen Smith purchased out the property of Judge Griffin; and 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 539 

Gen. Chamberlin erected a public house, and opened a mercantile 
establishment. 

The subject of the Genesee Valley Canal was first agitated at a 
public meeting in Cuba. The participators in the proceedings of 
the meeting, were John Griffin, Calvin T. Chamberlin, Daniel 
Raymond, Samuel Morgan, Simeon C. Moore, and other citizens 
of Allegany and Cattaraugus. 

The celebrated Oil spring, is two miles from the village of 
Cuba, on Oil creek. Most readers are familiar with its peculiar 
character. It is a curious fact; and demonstrates how wide was 
the range of the French Jesuits and traders, over the region of 
Western New York; that Joncaire knew of the existence of this 
spring, and described it to Charlevoix, in 1721. The mile square 
of land embracing it, was one of the reservations of the Seneca 
Indians, in their treaty with Robert Morris. The Indians regarded 
it of great value; attributed important medicinal qualities to the oil; 
in early years, after settlement commenced, it was a place, with 
them, of frequent resort. They used to spread their blankets upon 
the water, wring them, collecting the oil in their brass kettles. 

Soon after the settlement of the country, the oil was collected 
and sold; and has been in use more or less, for nearly fifty years, 
though it is not certain that it possesses much vhiue. The waters 
of the spring are pure and cold, not tainted with the oil. When 
the oil is skimmed off it will accumulate again, over the surface of 
the water, in one hour. It has a strong bituminous smell; in 
appearance, not unlike the British oil. 

The venerable Samuel S. Haight, an early lawyer of Western 
New York, prominent in its annals, is a resident upon a farm near 
Cuba; now over 70 years of age. 

The early settler on Allegany road between Cuba and Clean, 
was Simeon Hicks. He settled there in 1813. "Hick's tavern," 
was widely known, after emigration commenced via Olean, to the 
west. As many as two hundred emigrants have been sheltered 
under his roof at one time. When he went into the woods, his 
nearest neighbor east, was#EHsha Strong, where the village of 
Friendship is now located; his nearest west, was James Brooks, 
who lived two miles from Olean. Andrew Hull, who settled on 
a branch of Oil creek, in 1814, raised the first crops in that region. 

Judge Moses Van Campen surveyed road from Angelica to Olean, 
in 1815. 



540 HISTORY OF THE 

The author has no reminiscences of Hindsdale, except a hst of 
its first town officers, and the names of the first who took articles 
of land in the town. [<S'ee T. 2, R. 3, and T. 3, R. 3.] The first 
town meeting was in 1821. The officers chosen, were Israel 
Curtiss, Supervisor; Robert Hinds, Town Clerk; Thomas Warren, 
Samuel Boughton, Jedediah Strong, Assessors; H. Gross, Collector. 
Charles Price, Harvey Parker, Emory Yates, Com. of highways; 
Henry Gross, Lambert Fay, Com. of common schools. 

Major Adam Hoops, the founder of settlement at Olean, died in 
Westchester county, Pennsylvania in 1845; was in indigent cir- 
cumstances; subsisted in the last years of his life, upon his revolu- 
tionary pension; having at one period during that struggle, been one 
of the aids of Gen. Washington. 

Joseph M'Clure, was the early settler at Franklinville, and the 
founder of the village. He surveyed many of the early roads of 
Cattaraugus and Allegany, and was somewhat noted for his faculty 
of making them terminate at the settlement he had commenced; 
was an active and enterprising pioneer. 

A sketch, drawn from some reminiscences of primitive settlement 
in Farmersville, Cattaraugus county, will furnish the reader with a 
pretty distinct view of pioneer life. In 1816 and '17, Richard 
Tozer, Peleg Robbins, Peter Ten Broek, and Cornelius Ten Broek, 
began the settlement which they called Farmersville. They were 
all unmarried men except Richard Tozer. Isolated as they were, 
in their wilderness home, they found it necessary to make some 
local laws for the government of their small colony. They drew 
up a code, signed it themselves, and induced other settlers to sign 
it as they came in. One section of their mutual statute, was as 
follows: — "If any single woman who is over fourteen years of age, 
shall come to reside in our village, and no one of this confederacy 
shall offer her his company, within a fortnight thereafter, then and 
in such case, our board shall be called together, and some one shall 
be appointed to make her a visit; whose duty it shall be to perform 
the same, or forfeit the disapprobation of the company, and pay a 
fine sufficiently large to buy the lady thus neglected, a new dress." 
Few towns upon the Purchase have been more prosperous; and -i 
is quite likely that this early regulation aided essentially in the 
work of founding a new settlement and speeding its progi'ess. 

These pioneer adventurers carried their provisions ten and even 
twenty miles upon their backs, through the woods; and as a contrast 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 541 

between the past and the present; as an example of what industry 
and enterprise will accomplish, it may be remarked, that one of 
them (Judge Peter Ten Broek,) is now the owner of three thou- 
sand acres of land, and in the raising of stock and grain is not 
excelled by any farmer west of the Genesee river. 

Richard Tozer built the first framed house in Farmersville; Levi 
Peet the first framed barn, and planted the first orchard; Joseph A, 
Tozer was the first born in town. Rev. Eliab Going preached the 
first sermon. Richard Tozer was elected supervisor, on the first 
organization of the town, in 1822, and Elijah Price, town clerk. 

It will be noticed, by reference to the map of Cattaraugus, that 
Farmersville is upon the summit, embracing within its limits, the 
tributaries of the Allegany and Genesee rivers, and Cattaraugus 
creek, which is a tributary of lake Erie. There are two small 
streams that rise in the town, one running due east, and the other, 
nearly due north. They cross each other at right angles; flowing 
on as if undisturbed, though their waters must be supposed to have 
lost their identity, in the singular blending. There is one spot in 
the town, where a man can stand still and spit in the waters of the 
Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. 
These things do not belong to the subject of pioneer settlement, 
but their extraordinary character has invited a brief notice. 

The author has a distinct I'ecollection of some events attending 
the primitive breaking into the woods, in the south-west part ot 
Wyoming county, upon the Cattaraugus creek; to which he is ena- 
bled to add some reminiscences obtained from Abraham Smith, 
Esq, (the present sheriff of Wyoming,) whose father was a settler 
there as early as 1811. 

The pioneers in that region, were Abraham Jackson, and his sons, 
Capt. Amasa Kilbourn, Alfred Kilbourn, John Johnson, Samuel 
'Nichols, Abner Bump, and his sons, and Silas Meach; these, with 
Moses Smith, comprised all the settlers in the town of China, pre- 
vious to 1812. The settlement commenced in 1809; Roswell 
Turner, the pioneer of Sheldon, had for the Holland Company, 
partly opened a road from his residence south to Cattaraugus creek; 
and in that year, he took up a lot upon the creek, made a small 
improvement, and a son-in-law of his, Ichabod R. Sanders, went on 
to the land, but did not become a permanent settler there.* In 1812 

* It was in an attempt to reach the residence of her daughter, througli a woods path, 
on horseback, accompanied by a small boy, that the mother of the author was overtaken 



542 HISTORY OF THE 

and '13, there was added to the neighborhood, Col. Dewell Rowley, 
Walter Hinkley, Israel Kibby, John Nichols, Porter Belknap, 
James Steel, Thomas Root, David Barrows. Col. Rowley built a 
gi'ist mill in 1812 or '13; Moses Smith, a saw mill about the same 
time. The only boards used in the settlement previous to this, 
were obtained from saw mills in Sheldon and Hume. When the 
wife of one of the pioneers died, (Mrs. Kilbourn,) her coffin was 
constructed of hewed plank. Deacon Hinkley held the first 
religious meetings, and officiated in religious exercises at the prim- 
itive log school house. Dr. Benjamin Potter, and Dr. Ziba Hamil- 
ton, of Sheldon, often visited the settlement in early years, as 
physicians. 

A pioneer in this neighborhood, mentions the circumstance, (a 
very common one, as most pioneers will recollect) — that the early 
visiting, ball, and quilting parties, went upon ox-sleds, in the prin 
cipal season of back woods festivities; that he has himself been 
one of the parties that have gone from the settlement, over into 
Sardinia, (eight miles,) on ox-sleds, for an evening's visit. 

A Congregational church was organized in China in 1815 or '10, 
the Rev. Mr. Ingalls was the first settled clergyman. The first 
merchant in town, was Silas Parker. The first school was kept by 
Joel Dutton, in 1813. The early pioneer, Capt. Amasa Kilbourn, 
was killed at the capture and burning of Buffalo. 

The early settlers upon the Cattaraugus creek felt severely, the 
general scarcity of provisions in 1816 and '17. Many families 
were weeks without bread, subsisting principally upon milk; a 
settler who could go out to the older settlements, do a day's work, 
and get half a bushel of grain for his family, even felt himself 
highly favored. In 1817, wheat in some instances was sold as high 
as $3,00 per bushel, and corn for $2,00. The author was knowing 
to this price having been paid for wheat, in Attica, and for corn, al 
Squakie Hill and Gardeau. 

There are few of the surviving early settlers in south part of 
Wyoming and Erie, who will not remember the alarm that was 
spread through the new settlements, about the period of the great 
eclipse, in 1806. It caused much commotion and alarm with the 



by a storm, lost her way, and spent a dreary night in the wilderness; the hooting of the 
owl, the snarling of the wild-cat, and the howling of the wolf assailing her ears, and 
helping to make 

"Night hideous." 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 543 

Indians; and just about that time large numbers of them were 
passing and repassing between their Reservation at Buffalo, and the 
Reservations on the Genesee river. The mischievous rumor 
followed that there was to be an incursion of Indians from Canada, 
under Brant and Butler, that the Senecas were to become their 
allies, and the scenes of the Border Wars were to be re-enacted. 
It is not strange, that even an absurd rumor should have created 
apprehensions of danger in detached and defenceless pioneer set- 
tlements. All was alarm; work was suspended; some left their 
houses and sought refuge in the woods; and others prepared 
retreats, in case the necessity of flight should occur. In Hamburg, 
the settlers, at considerable labor, made a barn the centre of a 
fortress, ditching and picketing in the ground around it, and erecting 
block houses; the men chopping and digging, and the women 
cooking for them; there was mutual effort, for mutual self defence. 
It is scarcely necessary to add, that the alarm died away, and the 
back-woodsmen were soon again swinging the axe, and making 
openings in the forest. 

The opening of the old road, from Sheldon to Aurora, has been 
noticed. The first wagon that ever went over that road, was in 
July, 1806. Ichabod R. Sanders, a house carpenter, was moving 
his family to Black Rock, where he had contracted to build a house 
for Capt. Robert Lee. There were but a few acres cleared at Black 
Rock; and but three or four families. 

As an instance of the improvident waste of valuable timber, 
which is quite too common in new countries, it may be mentioned, 
that the town of Bennington was once pre-eminent for its fine groves 
of cherry. It was used as freely as hemlock, and even logged and 
burned, in some instances. There are now fences in the town, the 
rails of which were split from the finest cherry trees that grew 
upon the Holland Purchase. 

Quartus Clapp commenced settlement at Cowlesville, building a 
saw mill in 1816, and a grist-mill in 1818. Joseph Fitch built a 
saw mill at Scottsville in 1822 or '23. David Scott, Esq bought 
the property in 1825, and commenced the mercantile business there, 
Benjamin Folsom, going there as his clerk, became a partner and 
ultimately the proprietor; and has been, for many years, an enter- 
prising merchant and miller. 

As in other instances, the list of settlers in Wales only embraces 



544 HISTORY OF THE 

those who took contracts previous to Jan. 1, 1807. Along in the 
next few years, those who were conspicuous, (and may be deemed 
early settlers,) located there. Jacob Turner and sons were there 
as early as 1808, and built the first mills. The old gentleman was 
an enterprising and useful pioneer settler. The Aliens, Blackmans, 
Coles and Burts, were early settlers. 

The author has no reminiscences of early settlement in most of 
the south towns of Erie county, aside from the brief sketches he 
has already given, and the names of the first settlers of each town- 
ship. Settlement that commenced on the main east and west road, 
in 1804 and '5, soon extended south of that road, and previous to 
the war of 1812, there were scattered pioneer settlements in what 
now constitutes nearly all of the south towns of Erie county. 

The author is indebted to James Clark, Esq., of Lancaster, foi 
i-eminiscences of early events in that region. The first two settlers 
of the territory now included in the town of Lancaster, were 
James and Asa Woodward, who made a beginning there as early as 
1803. Alanson Eggleston and David Hamlin became settlers in 
1804; Joel Parmelee, in 1805; Warren Hull, in 1806; WiUiam 

Blackman, Peter Pratt, Kearney, Elisha Cox, in 1807; 

Elias Bissell, Pardon Peckham, Benjamin Clark, in 1808. 

In 1808, the main road from Lancaster to Buffalo was under- 
bushed, and made passable for sleighs in winter. Previous to this 
there had been a woods road opened by the Holland Company, 
from Alexander to Alden; and from thence it was continued along 
the Cayuga creek, to the Indian village ; and from thence to Buffalo. 
It was called the ''Lawson road." 

The first saw mill in town was erected by Robinson, in 

1808 or '9, upon the present site of Bowman's mills. Benjamin 
Bowman built a grist mill there soon after the war. The first 
school house was built in 1810 or '11, and answered the double 
purpose of a school and meeting house; Henry Johnson and Asa 
Field took the lead in the primitive religious meetings. ''Father 
Spencer" made his appearance soon after settlement commenced 
the Rev. Mr. Alexander was one of the earliest missionaries. 

Mr. Clark mentions a circumstance of a singular character trans- 
piring in Lancaster, in 1812 or '13, which will at least interest the 
ornithologist. Early in the spring, a species of bird unknown in 
this region before or since, made their appearance. They were 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. M5 

red, except a Utile black at the tip of the wings. Soon after they 
made their appearance, there was a change of weather; it became 
cold; and the strange visitors perished in great numbers. 

In 1804, the town of Batavia was divided into four towns. 
Batavia retained all the territory upon Holland Purchase, east of a 
line running north from the Pennsylvania line between the present 
towns of Portville and Olean, through the middle of the towns of 
Hillsdale, Franklinville, Farmers ville, Freedom, China, Java, Shel- 
don, Bennington, Darien, Pembroke, Alabama, Shelby, Ridgeway, 
and Yates, to lake Ontario. The town of Willink was bounded 
east by the above described boundaries, and west by the west 
Transit, which starts from the Pennsylvania line on the west bounds 
of the present town of Carrolton, and running due north, terminates 
a little east of the village of Olcott, on lake Ontario. The town 
of Erie was bounded on the east by the west Transit, and west by 
the division line between the 10th and 11th ranges of townships, 
which terminates on lake Erie, a short distance west of the mouth 
of Silver creek. The three towns named, as will be seen, stretched 
north and south, from the Pennsylvania line to lake Ontario. The 
fourth town (Chautauque,) embraced all the present county of 
Chautauque, except the townships east of the last mentioned boun- 
ce ^^i^y- UZF' For county divisions that followed, see some statistiCvS 
that precede maps. 

The town of Willink organized in 1805, as did Erie and Chau- 
tauque. The first town officers of Willink, elected at a town 
meeting held at the house of Peter Vandeventer, were as follows: 

Supervisor — Peter Vandeventer. 

Town Clerk — Zerah Ensign. 

Assessors — Asa Ransom, Aaron Beard, John J. Brown. 

Collector — Levi Felton. 

Commissioners of Highways — Gad Warner, Charles Wilber, 
Samuel Hill, Jr. 

Constables — John Dunn, and Julius Keyes. 

Overseers of the Poor — Henry Ellsworth, and Otis Ingalls. 

Pathmasters — Augustus Curtiss, Alexander Hopkins, Jedediah 
Riggs, James Degraw. 

Pound Keepers andiFence Vieivers — John Beemer, Asa Ransom, 
Peter Pratt, Lawson Eggleston. 

The aggregate vote of the town of Willink at the annual elec- 
tion, in 1807, on the assembly ticket, was but 115. 
35 



546 HISTORY OF THE 

Asa Ransom, Daniel Chapin, Aaron Beard, Commissioners of 
excise of the town of Willink in 1807, certify that John Richard- 
son, Samuel Carr, Francis B. Drake, Peter Vandeventer, Thomas 
Clark. Charles Wilber, Ephraim Waldo, James Walsworth, Wil- 
liam Warren, and Levi Felton, were qualified "to keep an inn or 
a tavern." 

The author has some reminiscences of early pioneer events 
derived from Samuel Slade, Esq. of Alden, which are made to 
apply to the town of Alden as at present organized, but which, on 
comparison with some cotemporary records, would seem rather to 
belong to that neighborhood, or region. Mr. Slade settled there in 
1811. The pioneer of the region, the first settler, the one who 
raised the first wheat and set out the first orchard, was Moses 
Fenno, who was killed at Black Rock, on the morning of the burn- 
ing of Buffalo. Joseph Freeman, Arunah Hibbard, James Crocker, 
Samuel Huntington, Joseph Stickney, and WiUiam Dayton, were 
settlers previous to the war. 

The first religious meetings were held at the house of Joseph 
Freeman. Elder Troup, was the first minister to conduct them. 
The Presbyterian church was founded by Father Spencer in 1813 
or '14. The Methodists had a class in town previous to 1820. 
The first school was in 1815 — kept by Mehetabel Esterbrooks, in 
a log school house, on the present site of Alden village. The first 
born, was a daughter of Arunah Hibbard. The first saw mill was 
built by John Rodgers, on the Eleven Mile creek, in 1813 or '14; 
he built a grist mill in 1817. 

As late as 1811, the Cayuga creek road was impassable with 
teams, except in winter. 

Mr. Slade says: — "The greatest difficulty the early settlers had 
to contend with, was bad roads. It used to take two days to go to 
Lancaster, (eight miles,) to mill; in times of drought, we used to 
have to go to Niagara Falls for our grinding. In the summer of 
1817, this neighborhood suffered severely for the want of food; 
many famihes subsisted on milk and roots, for days and weeks." * 

The Rev. Gleason Fillmore, of Clarence, was the first Methodist 
minister licensed upon the Holland Purcjjase. He located at 
Clarence in 1809, then in his 19th year, and soon after received 



* In that year of scarcity, which has so frequently been alluded to, it was very 
common to shell out the be'rry of the wheat as soon as it was formed, boil, and eat it 
with milk. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. S^f^ 

his license. From that period to the present, he has been engaged 
in the able and faithful discharge of duties that he took upon himself 
in his early wilderness advent. It is said of him, that he "labored 
for years, generally preaching two sermons every Sunday, alter- 
nating between the detached and scattered neighborhoods, attended 
the funerals of a wide region, and scarcely received as many dollars 
as he labored years." 

The first Methodist missionaries that came upon the Holland 
Purchase, were the Revs. Peter Van Nest and Amos Jenks, in 
1807, under the auspices of the Philadelphia conference. The first 
Methodist society, or church, was formed by Mr. Van Nest, in 
July, 1807, at the house of Jedediah Felton, Sen. at Clarence 
Hollow; it consisted of twelve members; Charles Knight was the 
first class leader. Of those twelve members, three yet survive, as 
does their founder, who is now a resident of the state of New 
Jersey. In 1807, there were forty-five members of the Methodist 
church west of Genesee river; in 1808, ninety-five. 

A Methodist church was founded in Buffalo in 1809, by the Rev. 
James Mitchell, but it had no permanent organization. Elder Fill- 
more re-organized a church there in 1818, his primitive materials 
being only eight persons, who " called themselves Methodists, 
mostly transient and poor." In the month of January, 1818, how- 
ever, the society had erected a small church, twenty-five by thirty- 
five, on Pearl street, nearly opposite where the First Presbyterian 
church now stands. This was the first church erected in Buffalo. 
It was erected in forty-eight days. It is yet standing, and is used 
as a joiner's shop, on the east side of Franklin, between Niagara 
and Church streets. 

Theodore C. Peters, of Darien, is the son of an early pioneer of 
that region — Joseph Peters, Esq. A short sketch he has obligingly 
furnished the author, affords a distinct glimpse of early times: — 

" My father came to this town in 1808, and purchased the farm 
we now occupy near the village, or as I observe it is correctly 
designated on your map, 'the city.' I can well remember, though 
young at the time, the long journey the family made in their advent 
to the Purchase, from Litchfield county. Conn., on an ox sled, in 
the winter of 1810. There was a small colony of some eight or ten 
families, who came together. Arriving upon the Purchase, our new 
home was a log house, with a bark roof, its crevices chinked and 
mudded; no jambs, but a stone back against which the fire was 



548 HISTORY OF THE 

made. The door was hung with wooden hinges; the floor was 
of hewed plank, and the hearth was the primitive mother earth. 
Around the house was a Httle opening in the forest of about five 
acres, and a log shed for the cattle. 

" Of the hardships and privations of the early settlers, you can, 
and I hope have, spoken feelingly; for none of us who came upon 
the Purchase in that early day, can ever forget them, though sur- 
rounded by all the comforts and luxuries of the present time. I 
can well remember when an apple was an unfrequent luxury. 

" The 'city' was named by an eccentric individual, when a tavern, 
blacksmith's shop and store was all it contained. ' Murder creek' 
took its name from the circumstance of my father and some of his 
neighbors finding a grave upon its banks. It was in a lonely place, 
and had been sometime made, as the body upon exhumation, was 
found much decomposed. The inference was, that some traveler 
had been decoyed and murdered." 

The territory now comprising the county of Niagara, it will be 
seen by some sketches already given, was mostly a wilderness in 
the beginning of 1807; the few settlers in it were principally upon 
the Ridge road, on the Lewistdn road, in Slayton's settlement, and 
on and near the Niagara river. During the five, years preceding 
the war of 1812, settlers broke into the woods, all along upon the 
fine grade of land under the Mountain' Ridge, along on the Lake 
shore, upon the Eighteen Mile creek, and in a few other locaHties. 

The venerable Reuben Wilson, of the town of Wilson, is one 
of the few survivors of the early pioneers of Niagara. Identified 
with almost the entire history of the county; taking for a long 
series of years an active part in its concerns; his memory of events 
distinct and retentive; the author has derived from him a narrative 
which he prefers to give the reader pretty much in the language 
and manner of the narrator: — 

"Emigrating from Massachusetts, I first settled in Canada, near 
Toronto, but remained there but three years. In April, 1810, I 
embarked with my family, consisting of a wife and five children, in 
company with John Eastman and his family, in a batteau, crossed 
the lake, and landed at the mouth of the Twelve Mile creeL 
Making a short stop at Niagara, I bought a few necessary articles, 
in all amounting to fifty cents; but small as was the outlay, it was 
my entire cash capital. Two cows that had been driven around the 
head of the lake, a few articles of household furniture, and a few 
farming tools, constituted the bulk of my worldly wealth. I took 
up one hundred and seventy acres of land, at $2,50 per acre, pay- 
ing nothing down, but agreeing to pay five per cent, in a few 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 549 

months.* There had come into this neighborhood a short time 
previous, (in what is now Wilson,) Stephen Sheldon, Robert 
Edmonds, and Dexter P. Sprague, (who afterwards went to Hart- 
land,) and Robert Waterhouse. Several families of the Mays and 
Finches, were in before the war. [Mr. Wilson mentions the names 
of the settlers along on lake shore, some of whom, have already 
been noticed. Those that have not, who were settlers previous to 
the war, were the families of the Wisners and Albrights, since 
widely known as enterprising and successful farmers; James 
M'Kenney, Zebulon Coates, Benjamin Halsted, Joseph Pease, 
Samuel Grossman, John Brewer, Geo. Ash, Jr. Peter Hopkins, 
David Porter.] 

When I came in, there was scarcely an acre of ground cleared 
in what is now Wilson. There was no road up and down the lake. 
In the fall of 1811, there was a road opened from fort Niagara to 
Somerset; it was generally along the lake shore, though deviating 
at the streams; at its termination, a foot path continued on to 
Johnson's creek on Ridge Road. 

In 1811, I was honored with the office of Gonstable, of the town 
of Cambria. It was a very easy station, no precept being put into 
my hands during the year. The first year after I came in, I had 
my provisions to procure from Ganada; the second year, I raised 
my own; at the end of two years, had fifteen acrbs of improvement. 
When I first began to raise grain, I had to go across to Port Hope 
and Hamilton for my grinding. Even after mills were built upon 
the Purchase, it was easier to go across the lake, than to travel the 
new roads. My first seventy acres of improvement was made 
pretty much with my own hands; after that, my sons were old 
enough to assist me. 

Previous to the war, myself and neighbors did our trading at 
Niagara. Dr. Alvord, and Dr. Smith, of Lewiston, were our early 
physicians. We had no meetings or schools previous to the war; 
after it, and up to 1820, we had but occasional preaching in the 
neighborhood, by missionaries. We organized a school in 1815; 
built a log school house; Dr. Warner was our first teacher. He 
was both school teacher and physician. Our school commenced 
with only 12 or 15 scholars. A saw mill was built in 1815, at the 
mouth of the Twelve, by Daniel Sheldon and Joshua Williams. I 
purchased the property in 1816, and built a grist mill in 1825. The 
first saw mill north of the Ridge, in Niagara, was built by Judge 
Van Horn, in 1811, and he built the first grist mill in the same year. 

The war created a demand for any produce we had to sell, while 
it continued. In 1816 and '17, the seasons were unpropitious. In 

* This condition, it is presumed, was waived, as in numerous other instances. Thera 
is an entry upon the contract book, dated Jan. lOih, 1811, in which it is noted that Mr, 
Wilson had a house built and ten acres cleared. Such an earnest of permanent settle- 
ment as this was, usually obviated any failure to meet payments. 



550 HISTORY OF THE 

1818 we had good crops, and the courage of the new settlers was 
revived, after a long period of gloom and depression, of struggling 
against formidable difficulties. When we began to have surplus 
produce, it was mostly needed by the new settlers that came in. 
For any thing we had to send off, Montreal was our market until 
the Erie Canal was finished. There was in all this region, a stop 
put to settlement and improvement during the war; more left the 
country, by far, than came in." 

The remainder of the narrative that Mr. Wilson has furnished 
the author, has reference principally to the events of the war of 
1812, and will be used in that connection. The town, (as will be 
inferred,) takes its name from the early and enterprising pioneer. 
He was its Supervisor, on its first organization, and continued to be, 
for eighteen years. He is now 71 years old, but so little broken 
with age and a life of toil, that he is often in his fields, laboring at 
whatever his hands find to do. He has been the father of fourteen 
children, but five of whom survive; they are sons, and heads of 
families; all residing in Wilson. His son Luther Wilson, Esq. is 
the patroon of the rural and flourishing village of Wilson, has been 
for many years, prominently connected with lake commerce; a 
miller and a merchant; and one of the principal founders of a 
successful and flourishing hterary institution — the Wilson Colle- 
giate Institute. 

The Holland Purchase has been a region of successful enterprise; 
affording every where, examples of the triumphs of industry and 
perseverance, over obstacles formidable as any that were ever 
encountered in a new country; but nowhere is the contrast between 
the past and the present, more striking, than in the town of Wilson. 
Less than forty years since, the prominent founder of settlement 
there, made his adv^ent into the wilderness, built his log cabin, and 
commenced making an opening in the forest; poor, as will have 
been seen; his last shilling expended; a wife and young children 
dependent upon the labor of his hands; a rugged soil to be subdued 
and paid far. Disease was encountered, at times, converting his 
humble primitive cabin into a hospital in the wilderness; his scat- 
tered neighbors perhaps equally afflicted. Soon there was added 
to the sufferings and privations of pioneer life, war, with all its 
horrors, in near proximity; and ultimately its scourges laid waste 
almost his entire neighborhood. Then followed cold and unpropi- 
tious seasons. There was ten long years of patient endurance 
before any "good time" came, or even partial prosperity was 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 551 

realized: — So much for the past. The present is the reverse of all 
this. The early pioneer is drawing toward the close of a life of 
industry and usefulness, surrounded by all the comforts and many 
of the luxuries of life; all is prosperous with him and about him; 
a succession of finely cultivated fields, of orchards, and more than 
comfortable farm houses, have taken the place of the dense forest, 
where there was but " half an acre cleared" when he first entered 
it; a smiling rural village — with dwellings, stores, and public 
edifices that would grace a place of more pretensions — has grown 
up on his early possessions. All this has necessarily partaken 
much of individual relation; but it is a sketch of life upon the Hoi- 
land Purchase — its early difficulties and endurances, and its 
triumphs. 

Judge Van Horn, whose name has been introduced in connection 
with the first mills north of the Ridge, still survives. He was not 
only one of the founders of settlement, but has been, for a long 
series of years, a prominent and useful citizen; the frequent incum- 
bent of town and county offices. In his old age, he is surrounded 
by the fruits of his early toils; has a numerous circle of descen- 
dants; and enjoys in an eminent degree the respect and esteem of 
his fellow citizens. 

In the neighborhood of Lockport, the prominent pioneer settlers 
were Daniel Pomeroy, the Weavers, Daniel Alvord, the Wake- 
mans, Webster Thorn, Daniel Smith, Stephen Hoag, Jacob Loucks, 
Lyman Liscomb, Messrs. Norton and Williams, the Harringtons, 
John Smith and brother, James Conkey, Nathan B. Rodgers, 
Jonathan Rummery, Joseph Otis, Eseck Brown, John Comstock, 
Isaac Titus, Isaac Mace, Christopher Freeborn, Nathan Comstock, 
John Ingalls, Alexander Freeman, David Carlton, Coonrod Keyser, 
Francis Brown, Deacon Crocker, Zeno Comstock, Asahel Smith, 
Reuben Haines, Jesse P. Haines. These constituted nearly all the 
settlers in that region, (except the few families that have been 
named in an earlier connection,) before the canal was located and 
Lockport village commenced. There was not six hundred acres 
of land cleared in the four square miles of which Lockport is the 
centre, before the canal was located; not one hundred on what is 
now embraced in the village corporation. In 1820, therewas no 
framed house or barn within five miles of Lockport. 

Lawrence M'Mullen, was the first settler upon the Tonawanda 
creek, between the Reservation and the rapids, and for eight years 



552 HISTORY OF THE 

was the only one. He went there in 1815. In 1823, Elias Safford, 
Esq. moved from Batavia with his large family, and became the 
first settler upon the north side of the creek, in T. 13, R. 5. 
Although his pioneer advent was at a late period, he encountered 
all the difficulties of a life in the wilderness. He persevered, and 
lives to enjoy the comforts of a fine farm, and to see the wild 
region he had the fortitude to enter as a pioneer, mostly settled and 
rapidly progressing in improvement. He has been not only the 
founder of settlement, but he has reared in his log cabin, upon the 
banks of the Tonawanda, an excellent family, that have gone out 
into the world, richly endowed with paternal precepts and 
examples. 

Daniel Benedict was a settler upon the creek in 1824. 

The first settlers of all Royalton, south of the Lockport and 
Batavia road, have been migratory to an extraordinary degree. 
There are not more than five or six families there, who were resi- 
dents in 1824. In one school district, sixty families have moved in 
and out, yet there is permanent settlement there now, as any one 
will conclude who has witnessed the earnest that the inhabitants 
are giving of their intention to remain. 

The author is indebted to Alexander Coon, Esq. of Shelby, who 
was one of the first, (if not the first,) settler in that town, for some 
early reminiscences of pioneer life in that portion of Orleans 
county: — 

"My father and his family came into the woods two miles west 
of Shelby village, in 1810. The whole family, with a hired man, 
left the Lewiston road at Walsworth, and arriving upon our land, 
four crotches were inserted in the ground, sticks laid across, and 
the bark of an elm tree used for roof and sides. The hut was only 
intended for a sleeping place; the cooking was done in the open 
air. So much accomplished, my father and mother went out to 
Walsworth's for a few nights to get lodging, the hired man and 
boys lodging in the hut. A log house was the next thing in order. 
A very comfortable one was built in five days, and that too, without 
the use of boards, nails or shingles. Our cattle were carried 
through the first winter entirely on browse; the next winter we had 
a little corn fodder to mix with it. 

"Our nearest neighbor south, was Walsworth, there was one 
family north, on the Ridge Road; west, there was no settler nearer 
than Hartland. Eleazer Tracy, came in next after my father; 
.Tohn Zimmerman, Nicholas Smith, Henry Garter, Robert Garter, 
the same year; William Bennett, James Carpenter, Samuel 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 553 

Carpenter, William Older, David Hagerman, David Demaray, Elijah 
Bent, soon after. When the British were in possession of the fron- 
tier, many of the early settlers left the country; som-e of them did 
not return. It w^as hard times during the war; provisions were 
scarce and high. I have been from Shelby, over the Genesee river 
for two bushels of wheat; getting it ground at the mill on the Cone- 
sus. In the cold season of 1816, 1 paid $11 for a barrel of flour, in 
Rochester, and $3 for its transportation. A circumstance I well 
remember in 1818, will shew how new settlers had to manage to 
get along. I was the collector of taxes; had a small tax, less than 
a dollar I think, against one man, who to raise the money, made 
black salts, and conveyed them to Gaines on a hand sled. The first 
boards we had in all this region, was from the saw-mill built by 
Andrew Ellicott." 

The early settlers of Shelby, locating there generally after the 
period embraced by Mr. Coon, were David Burroughs, Esq. the 
Gregorys, Freemans, Sherwoods, Snells, Servoss, Squires, Potters; 
and others, of whose names the author has no record. 

David Burroughs, Esq. (the father of S. M. Burroughs, Esq.) 
was the first supervisor of the town; for a number of years, and 
until his death, a magistrate; and was one of the representatives 
from Genesee in the state convention of 1821. In each station, he 
was distinguished as an efficient and faithful public servant. 

Col. Andrew Ellicott, was the patroon of Shelby village. He is 
remembered for his many acts of kindness to the new settlers; and 
especially for the interest he took in the welfare of the Indians at 
Tonawanda. He was adopted into their nation under the Indian 
name of "Kiawana," which means, a "good man." He has often 
helped them to bread in seasons of scarcity with them. 

Rev. James Carpenter, was the early and faithful minister in that 
region; and well deserves a passing notice in these necessarily brief 
pioneer annals. One who knew him well, says of him: — "He was 
truly a good man, possessed a bold and vigorous mind; and a deep 
seated love of his Master. He used to make the forest reverberate 
the "glad tidings," in echo to his stentorian voice. His sermons 
seldom occupied less than two hours; and often began at noon and 
were not finished until sunset. "The Elder," as he was familiarly 
called, when there was no other preacher in town, was fond of 
hunting as well as preaching; and wo! to deer or bear, that became 
the object of his unerring aim. A bear of large size, made a noc- 
turnal visit to the Elder's pig pen, which stood close to his log cabin; 
one of the pigs gave pretty distinct indications that he was within 



584 in:<roK\ of rm: 

lUo t'utal j^ras^s or hug. its Kovemiui ownor. spnuiij Uvm his Ivii. 
ami takinjj an axe» appi\>aei\tHi the Ih\u% ami with vm»o Wo\\\ tiiivotetl 
to tho hi'jiin. >aYtHl the piat and sooiuvil a Ivar skin of imcon\n^on sii'io. 

Tho otVuv of Ohristiim nunistoiv was no sineomv ujxni tho 
llolhuul Puivhaso, in early yetu"s; as the ixwder must have ahvadv 
iufenwi. They eueounteiXHi the ivuirhest featuivs of pioneer life; 
jvnetrati\l tlu> tlux^sts! hy wxxhIs nvuls, auii j^-uhs tl\at weiv only 
indieated by bhweed trees: pivaehing a sevnion in a log soIkx^I or 
dwelling house in one setlKMuent, attendii\g a tuneral in aiiother. 
pcrlonning the nuuTiage eeivniony m anotlier; and ivturning to 
tlieir homes jifier thus itiuei^Jiling, lalvivd wiil\ their hands, that 
they nught not "Iv ehargxn\ble ujhmi the bivthivn." It is ivmem- 
Ih)J\hI of one I'aithful pioneer si>ttier and minister in Niagjinv. that 
he has otten sjvnt the day in nuvting si^me ap^xMutment, — ^vrhai^ 
otlieiating at a funentl — and, rtnurning to his i\on\e. split rails, 
bnrnevl log heaps, pUmttnl jvUohes of oi>ru and jK^latot^s, or luxxl 
theuK by moonlight, Inslanees, numeixnis ones, txndd K> eited, 
which would illustrate the early endunnuvs, and the taithtVil, disin- 
ter^>sted auil devoted serviet^s of those who foundtnl the first 
eJuirehes u^xMi the Holland l\uvhaso. The ehmvhos to which 
tht\\- severally Wlongeil, sliould gather up their names, and clierish 
llieir memories. 

Ji\<t^ph Hart was a pioneer in that jxn-tion of Orleans county. 
eoniiguous to the village of Albion. He settknl vmi the Oak t.'hvluinl 
iwul. a little south of the village, in K*>ll; ju\d is yet ivsiding there, 
having rxwehed his 77th \*e;u\ Fivm a son of his, Mr. V,. Hart, 
of Albion, the author rvxviveil a few luief iXMuiuiseenees of etirly 
events: — 

•• Willian^ M' Allister was the pioneer of Barit>: his fhrm embractnl 
the eastern portion of tlie villajjt^ of Albion, f^liver Uenton. l-lsi^. 
i^ntleil in the town in IS 11.* X>hn Hv^lsonburg and Jesse Bumpus 

• This «t*Tl>- |x«>tKKMr of Ot<<Nitt« <><imwty dw>d in 1?4S> In «n ohttuMT uolir«> Jn tJ»«* 

*• Tho luo vM' Mr. BoMKxH is id<«»uA^l wiih ih* hisUxrv' vVf this wnniir. In <>*rty 
juwxhvssl ho OMUj^mtiftl K> tho |\lav>(> of hi* law ry>8sivlonvv, \hou a \\-»sto wiKUfmoss, 
whioh. bv h^ '.rihistry a«d |H>rs>OY*riinoo. ho suKhio*!. and *\u»vorto\i inu> tV\HiA«l lioUi*. 
Hfe hsV - \ ono »>f activity. Ho w^s Shontl\\t' this iNnnvty at aa o*riy jvrivid 

nlVer its . aiut, tl\r a i\vtn»bor ^xf \^ars, Tvvst Mastt>r; and tllkHl othor ssatioivi: 

«>«■ U*<»Ulu-,N> ,....., ^.- .V.., ,.'• , I t ■'■ '■ < !»st 

o\»nt\«ou>ont. ;^ss 

ivJ«tio«s ^vf iv , . "ly, 

Ry hte industry «n«i Mit^iinlity, u;uior U>o stuiios t\« rrv»vi«io.M<(^, ao "i>a<i aoc«tiutta«<^i a 
!I<xiH^lv snhstano* — a»\d ho had UvxhI t\> soo a thrit\j' t»ov§<th*vrhoivHl and a K>iS}>octaivlo and 
p(«intsia|t l^nihr jtviw np anMtnd him.'* 



HOLLAND riniCFrAHK. i»t>5> 

wcro oarly Sf;1ll(^rs; their farms vv<;r<.' IuikIh lliat, aro now embraced 
witfiiii lli(! villaLTc corijoralioii. 

"The only road [)a,ssable for tearriH when Motllcment comrrifinccd 
here, was the Oak Orchard road. The lirsl iriilhiig that, my fatfier 
had done, was at Iroiide(jnoit. A fact that 1 have often heard my 
falhiM- mcMtion, will convey some idea of the (condition of things 
here iti an early day: — The j)ioneer, M'Allister, bronght in witli 
hitti a hired man, who was accoiri[>anied l)y his wife; the first f(!male 
that resided in Barre. SIkj died soon aftfjr e.oming herr;. At the 
fuiKM'al, th(;re was no one of her S(;x present; nor any one to e,on- 
(Inet religious services; thei'c was no boards to be liad to make her 
codin; h(!wcd plank, pinned together, was nsed as a substitute. 

" In all the (;arly years, the inhabitants of this region, had few 
resources that woidd command money or store trade. Soon after 
the war, Van llensselaer Hawkins atid .Tamris Mathers, and the 
(irm of I'i. tSz, 1). Nichols, connnenei.-d the manufacture of pot and 
p(;arl ash, at (laines, and the jturchase of black sails. This ani>rd(;d 
the new settkn's the fiist faciliti(;s they had to command a little 
money, and it was such a hel|) to them as few can realize in these 
days of plenty. All of them who (;ould raise a five pail kettle, or 
club with their neighbors and get a cauldron, commenced the man- 
ufacture of the new articJe of commerce. It not only brought 
money into the country, but it y)romoted the clearing of land. The 
fine crop of vvhfjat in 1818 Iwdped but litlle. My father sold his 
wh(!at that year for twenty-five cents jier busluil; it was worth but 
lhirfi/-()nr cents in Rochester. Tht; avails of black salts, furnished 
nrrjvisions at a period when settlement must in a great measure 
nave beerj abandoned for the want of them; this is especially 
applicable to the seasons of 1810 and '17. 

"Our first religious meetings used to be held upon the Ridge 
road, by itinerating Methodist ministers; we used to go through the 
woods, generally on foot, when(;ver we heard of one of their 
appointments. The first school in the town of Barre, was kept by 
the wife of Silas Benton; slu; alt(;nded to her domestic affairs, kept 
boarders, and managed a school." 

James Mathers, Esq. was the first settler in Gaines, in 1810. 
He says: — 

" When I made my location, the settlers between Gaines and 
Clarkson were, Elijah Downer, John Proctor, Samuel Crippen, the 

NoTK. — Tho, rornurlcH of Mr. Hart, willi rofercnoo to llio timely aid that camo from 
a marlict Ik in^ opf^iicd for lihick salts, arc. applicatjlo almost lo tlio cnliri! I'lirdiasa. 
It helped in all tiio iwnv srUN'monls; (^iiahled tho si^tll'Ts (o [(ay taxes, aiifi jMirchaHO 
nocossary articles of dornctitic iiso, tho want of which had added much to tho privations 
of pioneer life. It is a fact, tho rriakinfj of a record of which is iluo to tho memory of 
tho late Hon. Kpliraim Hart, of TJtica, that heinfr a merttliant at IJatavia, at tho f)eriod 
spoken of, he transported from Utica one hundred potash kettles, and sold them to the 
now Hetllcrs, tnostl)' on credit, to onahle thorn to cmhraco the oi)portunity of converting 
their ashes into a markctahio commodity. 



556 HISTORY OF THE 

Farwells, Mattison, and a family at Sandy creek. West, 

in what is now Orleans, there was Noah Burgess, Cotton M. Leach, 
Isaac Leach, Messrs. Sibley, Jacobs, Wilcox, Joseph Adams, Daniel 
Pratt, Daniel Gates. 

" Previous to the war there was but a few scattered settlers north 
of the Ridge. 

"I built the first framed barn in Orleans county, procuring my 
boards at Turner's mill on the Oak Orchard, and at Dunham's mill 
at Johnson's creek. Noah Burgess set out the first orchard. 
William Perry was the first merchant in Gaines. The Nichols 
were next after him, commencing in 1816. Guernsey and Bush- 
nell started a mercantile establishment here in 1817, Van Rensselaer 
Hawkins was connected with it. 

" The first mail was carried through on Ridge Road, on horse- 
back, by James Brown. Daily stages were put on in 1816. 
Stage traveling increased rapidly and became very large before 
the opening of the Canal. I have often known eight and ten 
loaded coaches pass in a day. 

"About half of all the residents upon the Ridge Road, left during 
the war; most of them, however, retui'ned. In all the early years, 
we had much sickness upon the Ridge Road; ague and fever, and 
bilious fever, principally. I have known half, and even two-thirds 
of the inhabitants sick at the same time. In the years 1816 and 
'17, there would have been sufl^ering for food, if the inhabitants had 
not been kind to each other; dividing as long as they had anything 
to divide. When I came here in 1811, there was but little bread 
to be had; our living was principally potatoes, corn and fish. 

"The first school was established in Gaines in 1815; in a log 
school house, of course." 

Mr. Mathers speaks of the commencement of the manufacture of 
pot and pearl ashes, an'd attributes to it all the good effects that 
have been stated; and adds that the next article of commerce of 
Orleans, was staves, which found a market at Montreal. He dates 
the commencement of lumbering upon the lake, in 1816. In 1817 
and '18, it was extended along the lake, to the Niagara river; the 
mouths of Oak Orchard, the Eighteen, the Twelve, Youngston and 
Lewiston, were the principal depots. The trade was at first in 
butt staves; ship timber followed, and continued until the fine 
groves of oak, between ridge and lake, have pretty much disap- 
peared. As soon as the Canal was completed as far west as Lock- 
port, the commerce in staves and ship timber commenced upon it. 
Daniel Washburn and Otis Hathaway, first engaged in the business 
at Lockport, under a large contract with the eminent ship builder 
in New York, Henry Eckford. The fine oak that grew in the 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 557 

immediate vicinity of Lockport, was used to fill their contract. 
Since that, the business of shipping staves and timber from Lockport, 
and other points on the canal and Tonaw^anda creek, has continued, 
employing in the earliest years of canal navigation, a large amount 
of capital and labor; and even now the commerce has not ceased; 
but is of course much diminished; for although no other district of 
country in the United States, even bore as much oak, it was not 
exhaustless. Lake and canal, have conveyed the great bulk of it to 
Montreal and New York.* 

In the history of pioneer settlement in Orleans, there is the well 
remembered attempt to form a "Bachelor settlement;" — a kind of 
Fourierite community of joint, yet "single blessedness." They 
commenced the settlement in 1811; their location being about a 
mile below still water, on the Oak Orchard creek, in T. 16, R. 2. 
It was a failure, as the reader has probably already anticipated. As 
in the primeval locality of the progenitor of mankind: — 

" In vain the viewless seraph lingering there. 

At starry midnight charmed the silent air; 

In vain the wild bird caroU'd on the steep, 

To hail the sun slow wheeling from the deep; 

In vain, to soothe the solitary shade. 

Aerial notes in mingling measures play'd; 

The summer wind that shook the spangled tree, 

The wispering wave, the murmur of the bee; — 

Still slowly passed the melancholy day. 

And still the stranger wist not where to stray. 

The world was sad; — the garden was a wild; 

And man, the hermit, sighed — till woman smiled." 

An old Pioneer, quaintly observed to the author: "they began to 
go east and get wives in a year or two." The introduction of wives 
and the coming on of the war broke up the "Bachelor settlement," 
though most of its founders became permanent settlers, and heads 
of families. Like Benedict in the play, when they said they should 
"die bachelors," they did not think they "should live to be married." 

Judge Otis Turner, recently of Medina, now residing at Niagara 

*As specimens of the native timber growth of Niagara, the author cites the fact, that 
a black walnut tree was cut down, while clearing the ground to build the locks, in 
Lockport, a saw log from which, fourteen feet in length, made 1643 feet of inch boards. 
An Englishman, who had a nursery of forest trees in England, in an early day, procured 
in the neighborhood of Lockport, a black walnut, an oak and a whitewood plank, all 
eightv feet in lengtli. and measuring at their butts, over five feet in breadth, clear of 
the wane. He took them to London for exhibition, to promote the sale of his young 
trees. While at the wharf in New York, Major Noah called public attention to them, 
fjv a notice in his paper, and they were visited by thousands. 



558 HISTORY OF THE 

Falls, came upon the Holland Purchase in 1811. Starting Irom 
Palmyra, Wayne county, with an ox team to transport his family and 
household goods, he forded the Genesee river at the rapids, above 
the Falls. It was in November and there was not a little of peril and 
danger attending the fording at that inclement season. Taking his 
near ox by the horns, he was the pioneer, or pilot of his team, stem- 
ming the strong current himself, and selecting the best track, though 
at times there was iminent danger of his oxen loosing their foothold 
upon the slippery rocks, a ship, or rather a wagon wreck, and an 
aquatic excursion over the Falls. The intrepid adventurer how- 
ever, arrived upon the western shore in safety. Proceeding west 
upon the Ridge Road, there was no stream bridged that crossed it. 

Judge Turner located at Oak Orchard. From some minutes taken 
in conversation with him, the author selects a few brief sketches of 
early events in that region, in addition to those furnished by others. 

Dr. William White of Palmyra, became the neighbor of Judge 
Turner, soon after he located. The two pioneers built a saw-mill. 
on the Oak Oixhard between Medina and Ridge. This was the 
first saw-mill in all the region, except the one that had been erected 
by the Holland Company. 

The salt works at Oak Orcliard were first worked by Israel 
Bennett, in 1818. He bored about 150 feet, and obtained water 
tolerably strong. At one period he had seventy pot ash and caldron 
kettles set, and furnished most of the salt consumed in all the 
northern portion of the Purchase. Henry Boardman became the 
proprietor in 1823. The gradual completion of the Erie canal, 
induced the abandonment of the works. 

The earliest prominent settlers west of Oak Orchard, on Ridge, 
in Orleans, were: — Ezra D. Barnes, Israel Douglass, (the latter 
was the first magistrate north of Batavia;) Seymour B. Murdock 
and sons, Eli Moore. The milling of the first settlers was obtained 
at Niagara Falls and the Genesee river. 

The salmon in their seasons, were abundant, in the Oak Orchard, 
at the early period of settlement, and in fact, up to 1816 and '18. 
These and other fish, were a great help to the pioneer settlers; 
not only a substitute for food which it was difficult to obtain, but 
enabled them often to drive a brisk trade, an exchange or barter, 
with the new settlers who were farther removed from fishing grounds. 
In the months of June and September, the salmon would ascend 
the main stream and its small tributaries, in great numbers, and 



HOLLAND PURCHASE, 559 

were easily taken; sometimes they would ascend in high water, and 
when it receded, would be left upon the banks. They have been 
picked up in the cultivated fields along the streams, after a freshet. 

The transportation of the early settlers in the region of the Oak 
Orchard, used to be both upon the Ridge Road and the lake. In 
1812, and for some years after, vessels could enter the Oak Orchard 
that drew less than five feet of water. When settlement first 
commenced, there were indications that the mouth of the Oak 
Orchard had been a favorite stopping place for lake navigators, 
from the earliest period of French occupancy in this region. 

The reader has already, in the course of the narrative, had 
occasional glimpses of early events at Niagara Falls. It remains 
to speak of one, who for nearly forty years, has been closely 
identified with that world-renowned locality. Gen. Parkhurst 
Whitney, has not only been a pioneer upon the Holland Purchase, 
but he is the son of one of the earliest pioneers of Western New 
York. His father came as far west as Seneca lake, in the summer 
of 1789, and erected a small log house upon the "old castle" farm, 
ploughed five acres of land and sowed it to wheat, made a few tons of 
hay and stacked it, returned, and in the following February brought 
his family to his new home. Arriving at Rome, he found the road so 
bad, and his team so jaded, that he was obliged to leave most of 
his stock of provisions, and even after that his eldest son and hired 
man were obliged to lend the team frequent assistance, putting 
themselves upon the lead whenever they arrived at hard spots, and 
that was pretty often. The journey was one of peril and hardship; 
the pioneer mother, wading through mud and water on foot, and 
camping with the rest in the woods, three nights during the journey. 

Gen. Whitney settled at the Falls in 1810; in 1814 he opened a 
small tavern in a house belonging to Judge Porter, and in 1815 he 
bought the Fairchild stand, the site being the same now occupied 
by the Eagle. Joshua Fairchilds had been the pioneer landlord at 
the Falls. When Gen. Whitney took possession of the premises, 
the house was of logs, two stories, with a small framed addition. 
After taking possession, he continued to make additions and improv- 
ments, to tear down and build up, until 1831, when he bought the 
Cataract House, of which he became the occupant in 1835. Then the 
house was of very respectable dimensions, but not of a size adequate 
to the increase of visitors at the Falls. He added to it in 1835, 
one addition, forty feet by fifty-six feet, four stories high; in 1842 



560 ; HISTORY OF THE 

and '43, another addition of nearly the same dimensions; in 1845 
and '46, another addition, forty-two by one hundred and thirty-three 
feet, five stories, beside basement and attic. Beside all this, there 
has been added a two story kitchen, twenty-five by thirty feet; a 
stone factory, fifty by sixty feet, has been purchased and connected 
by a gallery, for sleeping rooms; and many out buildings have been 
put up. The reader has concluded by this time, that the estabhsh- 
ment, taken altogether, is of mammoth size, as it really is; vieing 
in magnitude and management, with the first class of hotels in the 
United States, The whole, its humble beginning, and what has 
been consummated, furnish a striking instance of progress, in a 
region of rapid change and improvement. 

The veteran landlord and founder of most of this large establish- 
ment, who used to be his own hostler, bar tender, and table waiter, 
(while his excellent wife was no less tasked in her departments,) 
has retired from an immediate supervision of it; and a son and 
son-in-laws, are his successors. With a constitution but slightly 
impaired by age, the model landlord has become a model farmer. 
as all may see who will visit his fine farm near the Falls, or who 
attend our county and state agricultural Fairs. 

The following brief notices of pioneer settlement in four separate 
localities, were omitted in the connection to which they belong: — 

The village of Lodi, which is located on either side of the Catta- 
laugus creek, in Cattaraugus and Erie counties, had its commence- 
ment in 1822. It has grown up on lands that were a part of a 
tract of seven hundred acres, belonging to Turner Aldi'idge, an 
enterprising member of the Society of Friends, who emigrated 
there from Farmington, Ontario county, in 1814 or '15. He built 
the first grist and saw mill. Judge Amasa L. Chaffee, Dr. Crumb, 
Alvin Bugbee, Enoch Palmer, L. H. Pitcher, were the first settlers 
in the village. Ralph Plumb, Esq. was the first merchant, and 
soon after him, Phineas Spencer and Norton Davison commenced 
the business. Chaffee and Bugbee, started the first cloth dressing 
establishment. The Post Office was established in 1823, Benjamin 
Waterman becoming the first P. M. A Methodist church was 
organized in 1824; a Presbyterian, in 1832. 

Charles and Oliver Johnson were the pioneers of the town of 
Boston, Erie county,* locating there at the early period of 1804. 

* So says one informant of the author. It will be observed that David Eddy makes 
Didimus Kinney the pioneer, and the Johnsons the ne$t settlers. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 561 

it is mentioned in some memorandums that the author has of their 
early advent in the wilderness, that during the first winter, Colonel 
Charles Johnson, bought a bushel of corn of the Indians, and con- 
veyed it upon a hand sled and upon his back, a distance of fifteen 
miles through the woods, the snow being at the time, two feet 
deep; and that he also, during the same winter, backed another 
bushel from Batavia. The two brothers raised the first crops, and 
planted the first- orchard. The first town meeting was held in 
Boston, in 1818; Samuel Abbott was elected Supervisor, and 
Sylvester Clark, Town Clei'k. The first merchant in town, was 
Zadock Stevens; the first physician, Sylvester Clark; the first born 
in town, was Pliny Johnson, a son of Oliver Johnson. Two citi- 
zens of the town, Calvin Cary and Hoofman, were killed at 

the capture and burning of Buffalo. 

The road from Buffalo to Olean, through Springville and Ellicott- 
ville, was opened in 1810; the commissioners to locate it, were 
David Eddy, Timothy Hopkins, and Peter Vandevcnter. It was 
opened by the state, and the county of Niagara, each paying one- 
half of the expense. 

The family of Prendergasts were among the early pioneers of 
Chautauque. It consisted of six brothers and a sister, Mrs. 
Whiteside. Martin and Jedeiah were the founders of the village 
of Mayville, and were the primitive merchants there, commencing 
in 1806 or '7, in a log store, on the bank of Chautauque lake. 
James was the founder of Jamestown. Matthew settled on Chau- 
tauque lake, a few miles from Mayville; William and Thomas, in 
the town of Ripley. In an early period, few families were more 
prominent upon the Holland Purchase, or more identified with 
settlement and its progress. As in numerous other instances, the 
author has to regret the absence of data for a more extended 
notice. The only surviving one of the six brothers, is Col. WiUiam 
Prendergast, of Mayville. Mrs. Whiteside, the sister, who settled 
at Mayville with her brothers, was the mother of the first wife of 
the Hon. John Birdsall. 

James M'Clerg, an Irishman by birth, was the patroon of the 
village of Westfield; was an early merchant there, and the founder 
of the large public house, that at the period of its erection, was 
not surpassed in magnitude and cost, by any similar establishment 
in Western New York. 

36 



562 HISTORY OF THE 



THE PIONEER SETTLER UPON THE HOLLAND PURCHASE, AND 
HIS PROGRESS. 



" Through the deep wilderness, VA'here scarce the sun 

Can cast his darts, along the winding path 

The Pioneer is treading. In his grasp 

Is his keen axe, that wondrous instrument, 

That Hke the tahsman, transforms 

Deserts to fields and cities. He has left 

The home in which his early years were past, 

And, led by hope, and full of restless strength. 

Has plunged within the forest, there to plant 

His destiny. Beside some rapid stream 

He rears his log-built cabin. When the chains 

Of winter fetter Nature, and no sound 

Disturbs the echoes of the dreary woods, 

Save when some stem cracks sharply with the frost; 

Then merrily rings his axe, and tree on tree 

Crashes to earth; and when the long keen night 

Mantles the wilderness in solemn gloom, 

He sits beside his ruddy hearth, and hears 

The fierce wolf s-,iarling at the cabin door. 

Or through the lowly casement sees his eye 

Gleam like a burning coal." * 

The engraved view, No. 1, introduces the pioneer. It is Winter. 
He has, the fall preceding, obtained his "article," or had his land 
"booked'- to him, and built a rude log house; cold weather came 
upon him before its completion, and froze the ground, so that he 
could not mix the straw mortar for his stick chimney, and that is 
dispensed with. He has taken possession of his new home. The 
oxen that are browsing, with the cow and three sheep; the two 
pigs and three fowls that his young wife is feeding from her folded 
apron; these, with a bed, two chairs, a pot and kettle, and a few 
other indispensable articles for house keeping, few and scanty alto- 
gether, as may be supposed, for all were brought in upon that ox 
sled, through an underbrushed woods road; these constitute the 
bulk of his worldly wealth. The opening in the woods is that 
only, which has been made to got logs for his house, and browse 
his cattle for the few days he has been the occupant of his new 
home. He has a rousing fire; logs are piled up against his rude 
chimney back; his fire wood is convenient and plenty, as will be 

* Alfred B. Street. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 563 

observed. There is a little hay piled on a hovel off to the right; 
the cattle and the sheep well understand that to be a luxury, only 
to be dealt out to them occasionally. The roof of his house is of 
peeled elm bark; his scanty window is of oiled paper; glass is a 
luxury that has not reached the settlement of which he forms a 
part. The floor of his house is of the halves of split logs; the 
door is made of three hewed plank — no boards to be had — a saw 
mill has been talked of in the neighborhood, but it has not been put 
in operation. Miles and miles off, through the dense forest, is his 
nearest neighbor. Those trees are to be felled and cleared away, 
fences are to be made; here, in this rugged spot, he is to carve out 
his fortunes, and against what odds ! The land is not only to be 
cleared, but it is to be paid for; all the privations of a wilderness 
home are to be encountered. The task before him is a formidable 
one, but he has a strong arm and a stout heart, and the reader has 
only to look at him as he stands in the foreground, to be convinced 
that he will conquer all obstacles; that rugged spot will yet "blos- 
som like the rose;" he will yet sit down there with his companion in 
long years of toil and endurance — age will have come upon them, 
but success and competence will have crowned their efforts. They 
are destined to be the founders of a settlement and of a family; to 
look out upon broad smiling fields where now is the dense forest, 
and congratulate themselves that they have been helpers in a work 
of progress and improvement, such as has few parallels, in an age 
and in a country distinguished for enterprise and perseverance. 



564 HISTORY OF THE 



SECOND SKETCH OF THE PIONEER. 



No 2. — It is Summer. The pioneer has chopped down a few 
acres, enclosed them with a rail fence in front, and a brush fence 
on the sides and in the rear. Around the house he has a small spot 
cleared of the timber sufficient for a garden; but upon most of the 
opening he has made, he has only burned the brush, and corn, pota- 
toes, beans, pumpkins, are growing among the logs. He has got a 
stick chimney added to his house. In the back ground of the pic- 
ture, a logging bee is in progress; his scattered pioneer neighbors, 
that have been locating about him during the winter and spring, have 
come to join hands with him for a day, and in their turns, each of 
them will enjoy a similar benefit. His wife has become a mother, 
and with her first born in her arms, she is out, looking to the plants 
she has been rearing upon some rude mounds raised with her own 
hands. She has a few marygolds, pinks, sweet williams, daffbdills, 
sun flowers, hollyhocks; upon one side of the door, a hop vine, and 
upon the other a morning glory. Knowing that when the cow 
came frem the woods there would come along with her a swarm of 
musquitoes, she has prepared a smudge for their reception. A log 
bridge has been thrown across the stream. It is a rugged home in 
the wilderness as yet, but we have already the earnest of progress 
and improvement. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 565 



THIRD SKETCH OF THE PIONEER. 



No 3. — It is Summer. Ten years have passed; our pioneer 
adventurer, it will be seen at the first glance, has not been idle; 
thirty or forty acres are cleared and enclosed. Various crops are 
growing, and the whole premises begin to have the appearance of 
careful mangement, of thrift, comfort, and even plenty. The pio- 
neer has made a small payment upon his land, and got his "article " 
renewed. He has put up a comfortable block house, but has had 
too much reverence for his primitive dwelling to remove it. He 
has a neat framed barn, a well dug, a curb and sweep; a garden 
surrounded with a picket fence. His stock is increased as may be 
seen, by a look off into the fields. The improvements of his neigh- 
bors have reached him, and he can look out, without looking up. 
A school district has been organized, and the comfortable log school 
house appears in the distance. A framed bridge upon the stream, 
has taken the place of the one of logs. The pioneer, we may 
venture to assume, is either Colonel of militia, a Captain, a Super- 
visor of the town, or a Justice of the peace; however it may be, 
he is busy in his haying. And she, the better part of his household, 
must not be lost sight of; and she need not be, for the artist has 
been mindful of her. She is busy with her domestic affairs; there 
is quiet and even loneliness about her; but, depend upon it, there 
are in yonder log school house, some half a dozen that she cares 
for and hopes for. 



566 HISTORY OF THE 

FOURTH SKETCH OF THE PIONEER. 



No. 4. — It is Winter. Forty-five years are supposed to have 
passed since the artist introduced the pioneer and his v^^ife to us, 
just commencing in their wilderness home. The scene has pro- 
gressed to a consummation ! The pioneer is an independent Farmer 
of the Holland Purchase. His old " article" has long ago been 
exchanged for a deed in fee. He has added to his primitive posses- 
sions; and ten to one that he has secured lands for his sons in some 
of the vv^estern states, to make pioneers and founders of settlements 
of them. He has flocks and herds; large surplus of produce in 
his granaries, which he may sell or keep as he chooses. He is the 
founder, and worker out, of his own fortunes; one who in his old 
age should be honored and venerated, for his are the peaceful 
triumphs of early, bold enterprise, as we have seen; and long years 
of patient, persevering industry. He has more than comfortable 
farm buildings, orchards, and fruit yards; the forest has receded in 
all directions; he is prosperous in the midst of prosperity. There 
is the distant view of a rural country village that has sprung up in 
his neighborhood; a meeting house, a tavern, a few stores and 
mechanic shops, and a substantial school house. The stream that 
was forded, when the pioneer entered the forest with his oxen and 
sled, has now a stone arched bridge thrown over it. The artist has 
given us a rural landscape, in which is mingled all the evidences of 
substantial, well-earned prosperity; there is an air of comfort and 
quiet pervading the whole scene; the old pioneer, true to the 
instincts and habits of his youth and middle age, is not idle, as we 
can see. He has yet an eye upon his affairs, and a hand in them; 
and could we look within doors, we should see the young wife that 
bravely penetrated the forest with him; she who has lightened 
his burthens, and solaced him in such hours of despondency as will 
come upon the stoutest hearts; transformed into the staid, aged 
matron; yet looking to the affairs of the household; and blending 
precept with example, fitting her daughters for the vicissitudes, 
the trials, and the duties of life. 

Such has been pioneer life and progress upon the Holland Pur- 
chase. A fancy sketch it may be called; but yet it is a faithful 
illustration of such realities as will be recognised by all who are 
familiar with the events that have attended the conversion of West- 
ern New York, from a wilderness, to a theatre of wealth, enter- 
prise, and prosperity, such as it is now. 




OF WM. ENDlCOTT &; CO 



C^-/^^X€^ ca^ 



M 



0<ij 



j^i^sfii^i^iE Mn^ 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 567 



EBENEZER MIX. 



The artist, it will bo conceded, has been successful. The features 
he has presented will be recognised in every school district upon 
the Holland Purchase. To have rendered the portrait more familiar 
the old land office clerk should have been represented holding in 
his hands an "article," (tattered and torn, upon its reverse side, 
endorsements, assignments, and re-assignments,) peering over it 
with a mathematical eye, determining metes and boundaries, adjust- 
ing conflicting claims, " modifying" or reviewing, or perhaps can- 
celling it preparatory to a deed in fee. Then the picture would 
have been true to life and reality; but these are associations that 
all the " old settlers" will readily supply. 

Mr. Mix is a native of New Haven, Conn. He became a 
resident at Batavia in 1809; working first at his trade, that of a 
mason, he became a school teacher, then a student at law in the 
office of Daniel B. Brown, Esq., and in March, 1811, entered into 
the service of the Holland Company, as a clerk in their land office, 
where he continued for twenty-seven years. He had been in the 
office but a few months, when he took the place of contracting 
clerk. His duties were, to make cbntracts, calculate quantities of 
land, renew and modify contracts, make subdivisions of lands, and 
generally, to do all things appertaining to the place of salesman. In 
this way, he participated in the sale of all the lands of the Holland 
Company made after 1811, which were not within the boundaries 
of the several branch offices. Beside this, the author observes by 
the records, that he took a prominent part in arranging the details 
of measures appertaining to the whole Purchase; the fixing of the 
basis for the modification of contracts; the disposition of church 
donations; the plan for vesting school house sites, that were upon 
articled lands, in trustees, in fee; and in other measures that 
necessarily devolved upon the main office at Batavia. No one in 
the service of the Company, has been brought into so direct a con- 
tact with the settlers, or has had a more intimate acquaintance with 
them, and all the relations that have existed between them and the 
original proprietors. Few men could have better filled the place 
he so long occupied. Possessed of extraordinary talents, as a 
practical mathematician; a memory of localities, boundaries, topog- 
raphy, which mapped the Holland Purchase upon his mind; he 



568 HISTORY OF THE 

was for a long series of years, eminently useful, not only to his 
principals, but to the settlers upon the Purchase; — and yet survives, 
answ^ering the purposes of a book of reference, or an encyclopedia, 
whenever conflicting questions arise, touching land boundaries, 
highway locations, or any of the primitive surveys or allotments. 
Irritable — a little rough and stubborn — he may have seemed at 
times, when hard pressed with the importunities of a crowd of 
settlers at the land office; but beneath the rugged exterior, there 
was a good heart, an inherent love of justice and right, that invested 
him with the confidence and esteem of the settlers generally, and 
constituted him the frequent and safe arbiter of their interests and 
welfare. 

For twenty consecutive years, the subject of this sketch of 
artist and author, filled the office of Surrogate of the county of 
Genesee. In the war of 1812, in a crisis of danger with the 
frontier settlers upon the Holland Purchase, he transferred himself 
from the land office to the camp and the post of danger. He M^as 
the volunteer aid of Gen. P. B. Porter, at the memorable and 
successful sortie, at Fort Erie, September 17th, 1814. He has 
within a few years, been the author of a work entitled "Pi'actical 
Mathematics," which needs only to be better known, to become a 
standard work in that branch of education. His age is now 61 
years. 

Judge James W. Stevens, entered the service of the Holland 
Company at the earliest period of land sales; was the clerk of Mr. 
Ellicott when an office was opened at the house of Mr. Ransom, at 
"Pine Grove," in 1799, and remained a clerk in the land office 
until his death, in 1841. He was a native of New Jersey, a 
graduate of Princeton college; a man of quiet, unobtrusive habits; 
possessed of a fine literary taste; in early life, was the contributor 
to a literary periodical in Philadelphia. In business, he was careful 
and methodical; all that came from his hands, is remarkable for its 
neatness and perspicuity, as volumes of manuscripts in the land 
office, will testify. To habits of industry, he added the character 
of scrupulous integrity. His public and private life were blameless. 
He was respected in his life time, for his many excellent qualities; 
and no where among his old associates, and the pioneers of the 
Holland Purchase, is his memory revived, but in terms of esteem. 

Ebenezer Gary was in the employ of Mr. Ellicott as early as 
1795, in the survey of lands in Pennsylvania; and came with him 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 569 

upon the Holland Purchase; acting sometimes in the capacity of 
surveyor; at others, as clerk or agent, at the store house in Stafford, 
and in superintending the purchase and transfer of provisions. He 
was an early merchant at Batavia; was the founder of the mercan- 
tile establishment, afterwards so long and widely known upon the 
Holland Purchase, in the hands of his brother, the Hon. Trumbull 
Gary. His early correspondence with Mr. EUicott, would alone 
justify the conclusion, that he was a man of no ordinary mould; 
enterprising, faithful and persevering. 

He had been thoroughly inured to back-woods life. In a letter 
to Mr. Ellicott, written toward the close of a winter of inactivity, 
he says: — "The approach of another surveying season, increases 
my anxiety to be off; like the savage, I am sighing for the wilder- 
ness.'" In another letter, proposing to be employed, he is in a 
philosophic, or reflecting mood; he says: — "I wish to go with 
you, but I am not willing to wear out this old carcase for nothing. 
I must be preparing for the winter of life; for, generally speaking, he 
that has no money, has no friends." He died at Batavia, in 1825. 

William Peacock, Esq. of May ville, is one of the few survivors 
of the early surveyors of the Holland Company; at one period he 
was a clerk in the office at Batavia. He surveyed most of the 
townships of Chautauque into farm lots, and in 1810 was appointed 
local agent at Mayville, which office he continued to fill until the 
sale of lands in Chautauque, to Messrs. Cary and Lay, of Batavia. 
He surveyed the city of Buffalo; there are few, in fact, who have 
had a larger participation in the events connected with the surveys, 
sale and settlement of the Holland Purchase. He has reached the 
age of 69 years. Among the old Pioneers who were drawn 
together at the last State Agricultural Fair at Buffalo, was the old 
surveyor and land agent, wondeiing with others, in view of the 
evidences of wealth, prosperity and improvement which came from 
the region they had traversed when it was a wilderness. Mr. 
Peacock married a niece of Joseph Ellicott. 

David Goodwin, Esq. was also an early surveyor, and clerk in 
the land office. When the branch office was established at Elli- 
cottville, he took charge of it, and continued to be the local agent 
there until succeeded by Stahley N. Clark, Esq. Mr. Goodwin 
married a niece of Joseph Ellicott. His widow survives; is a resi- 
dent of Lewiston, with her son-in-law, S. B. Piper, Esq. 

Our brief sketches of Pioneer advents upon the Holland Purchase, 



570 HISTORY OF THE 

which have been intended to embrace detached localities, in all 
parts of it, must now be brought to a close; and not in the absence 
of regrets that they could not have been more full, and included all 
who took a prominent part in the founding of settlements, in our 
now so highly favored and prosperous region; a consummation, 
which, however desirable, the intelligent reader will readily see, 
would have swelled that branch of the main design of the work to 
an extent that must have excluded that which the author hopes will 
prove quite as acceptable. There was a sameness every where in 
Pioneer life; more of detail, of individual or local relation, would 
not better inform the reader of its privations and vicissitudes. 
Wherever the wilderness was penetrated, the same difficulties were 
to be encountered; the same years of hardship and endurances 
were to intervene between the primitive settlement, and the attain- 
ment of the comforts and conveniences of life. 



THE TOPOGRAPHY OF THE HOLLAND PURCHASE. 



The topography of the Holland Purchase admits of the following 
natural divisions, each possessing a similarity in soil, climate and 
productions through its several parts, and varying from each other 
in a greater or less degree, in those points. The most prominent 
division is made by an elevated dividing ridge, commencing west 
of Genesee river, in township number six, in the first range, and 
running thence westerly through or near township number six in the 
second range, five in the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, 
ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth ranges, to within about six miles 
of lake Erie; thence south-westerly, through township number 
four, in the thirteenth range, and southerly through township num- 
ber three, in the thirteenth range; thence west near the line 
between townships number two and three, in the fourteenth and 
fifteenth ranges to the Pennsylvania line. The extent of this ridge 
in width, is from three to six miles, the descent of its sides, how- 
ever, is nowhere abrupt, nor is its extent defined with precision. 
Although the summit of the ridge is from one thousand to one 
thousand five hundred feet above the level of lake Ontario, it 
nowhere receives or deserves the name of a mountain. It is 
watered by springs and streamlets, and timbered with beech, red 
and black oak, white ash, ironwood, and hemlock; the soil is mostly 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 571 

gravel and yellow loam, tolerably free from stone; a great portion 
of it, if not the whole, is arable land, when cleared and prepared 
for cultivation. It is better adapted to grass than to grain, although 
good crops of oats, barley and other coarse grain have been raised 
on it; like other high ground, it is subject to late and early frosts, 
and in winter, to heavy falls of snow; the climate is healthy, and 
the water and air pure. The waters from the summit of this ridge 
flow to the north-west and north into lake Erie, Niagara river, and 
Genesee river, and to the south and south-east into the Allegany 
river, although a few small streams at its eastern extremity, fall 
into Genesee river, yet the whole territory, south and south-east 
of the dividing ridge may well be termed the valley of the Allegany. 

That part of this valley lying north of the Allegany river, is 
hilly and rolling, but not mountainous; it is well watered by crystal 
springs and purling streams; the timber is beech, sugar maple, pine, 
cherry, elm, black oak, hemlock, basswood, white ash, and cucum- 
ber: the soil in general, is gravelly or sandy loam, containing no 
limestone, and very few stone of any kind; stone quarries, however, 
are to be found scattered through the whole territory: it is well 
adapted to the growth of barley, oats, peas, flax, potatoes, and 
various other esculent roots; and has produced tolerable crops of 
spring wheat, rye and corn; and the hardier kinds of fruit, such as 
apples, pears, and cherries are cultivated with success in this dis- 
trict. The climate is rather mild, and the snows seldom fall over 
one or two feet deep; but the summer season is usually from two 
to three weeks shorter than it is in the vicinity of the lakes, north 
of the dividing ridge; the water and air of this district are pure and 
salubrious. 

The territory south of the Allegany river, is mostly rough, 
covered by precipitous, rocky hills of considerable height, some 
portions of it, such as the flats on the streams and less rugged 
borders, are, or rather were covered with excellent pine timber; 
much of the land thus timbered, is arable and fertile, after being 
brought to a state of cultivation, although in a cold climate; but by 
far the greater portion of the whole, is sterile, waste land or rocks 
covered at the interstices with mountain laurel, dwarf pines and 
other evergreen shrubs. 

The narrow glade of land between the dividing ridge and lake 
Erie, from Cattaraugus creek to the Pennsylvania line, gradually 
descends from the termination of the ridge to the lake shore; the 



572 HISTORY OF THE 

soil is gravelly or sandy loam, timbered with beach, sugar maple, 
whitewood, basswood, hemlock, and some pine; yielding abundant 
crops of grass, wheat, rye, corn, oats, barley and the several kinds 
of esculent roots and vines produced in this region. It is well 
watered with springs and numerous streams descending from the 
dividing ridge; although the earth is calcarious, there is no lime 
stone in this region, and very few stone of any kind, except in 
quarries. The climate is not severe, although subject to sudden 
changes, being in a great degree controlled by the vacillating lake 
winds. Apples, peaches, pears, plums and similar fruits are 
produced in great abundance on this territory. The lake shore 
furnishes several small harbors, as Silver Creek, Dunkirk, Van 
Buren and Barcelona. 

The country north of the dividing ridge, including the head 
waters of Cattaraugus, Eighteen Mile of Lake Erie, Buffalo, Ton- 
awanda and Allan's Creeks, forms another district, possessing great 
uniformity of character. This is a rolling country, well watered 
with pure water: the timber is beech, sugar maple, elm, basswood, 
cherry, white ash and hemlock; the soil is gravelly loam, with clay 
in some sections, containing no lime stone, nor a surplus of any 
kind of stone. It produces good grass, and at least middling crops 
of most kinds of grain and esculent roots raised on the Purchase; 
winter wheat is probably the only exception, for which spring wheat 
is substituted; of fruits, apples, pears, cherries and a variety of 
plums are grown in this district. The climate is generally mild 
and salubrious, the snow is seldom deep, and the summer season, 
usually is long enough to bring crops to maturity: this may be 
called the central district. 

The territory north of the central district and south of the steep 
which causes the falls of Niagara, including the vallies or plains of 
the Buffalo and Tonawanda creeks, and the head waters of the Oak 
Orchard, forms another district the face of which although some- 
what rolling, is comparatively level, and as a whole, forms a glade 
of upland heavily timbered with beech, sugar maple, white oak, elm, 
whitewood, basswood, chestnut, cherry, white ash and hemlock, 
although it contains some districts of openings, thinly occupied by 
shrubby oaks and some of swamps and swales, timbered with black 
ash, white cedar and other lowland timber, of which the chief is 
Tonawanda swamp stretching itself in a kind of broken chain 
from near the Niagara river, two or three miles north of the mouth 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 573 

of Tonawanda creek in an eastern direction to the Genesee river, 
south of Rochester, where it is called "black creek swamp." This 
territory is not as well watered as the other districts described: the 
prevailing winds are from the south-west or rather south of west 
from the surface of lake Erie, which renders the air pure and salu- 
brious. This is a limestone district: the soil in general, is a calca- 
rious gravelly or sandy loam, covered generally with rich vegetable 
mould, and easily cultivated; it produces in great abundance, grains 
of the various kinds, wheat, rye, corn, oats, barley, &c. including 
ail the different kinds of grain, esculent roots, melons and other 
vegetable productions of Western New York. The climate is 
milder, and the summer season continues longer, exempt from frosts 
than in the more southern districts of the Purchase, on account of 
its less elevated situation, and its contiguity to the lakes. The soil 
and climate combined renders this district very productive in almost 
all the fruits raised in the temperate zone, among which, are apples, 
pears, cherries, peaches, apricots, plums and grapes of various kinds; 
perhaps the productions of the soil in no country on earth yield a 
greater variety and at the same time so great an abundance of the 
substantials, delicacies and luxuries for food and refreshment as this 
territory. 

The territory lying north of the Niagara steep, forms the lower 
plateau of the Purchase. This district is poorly watered, when 
compared with the southern and middle districts, although it has 
many fine streams passing through it, emptying into lake Ontario. 
These are the main bodies of the Eighteen, of Lake Ontario, and 
Oak Orchard creeks, the Four Mile, Twelve Mile, Golden Hill, 
Johnson's, Otter, and Marsh creeks, and the head waters of a 
branch of Sandy creek. This district is divided near its centre by 
the Ridge Road running through it in an eastern and western direc- 
tion. The face of the country is apparently level, although it 
gradually descends to the north towards lake Ontario. South of 
the Ridge Road the soil is gravelly loam, interspersed with consider- 
able tracts of alluvion n-ear the Niagara steep. The soil on the 
north side of the Ridge Road is of a lighter loam than on the south. 
The timber on this tract, is beech, sugar maple, white oak, black 
walnut, elm, white wood, basswood, white ash, and hemlock; black 
walnut abounds the most on the south side of the Ridge Road, and 
white oak the most on the north. Although there is no limestone 
north of the Niagara steep, or mountain ridge, that the soil is cal- 



574 HISTORY OF THE 

carious, that is, impregnated with lime, is fully proved by the large 
crops of plump and perfect wheat produced on this plateau. The 
productions of the soil, and the climate, are so similar to those of 
the second or upper plateau, that an enumeration of their items, 
and statement of their qualities would be a mere repetition. If 
any distinction was to be made, it might be alledged that the pro- 
ductions of the soil on the lower plateau are not quite so diversified, 
and that the climate is more mild and uniform than on the upper. 
For the productions of the several portions or districts of the 
territory, as experimentally ascertained, both as to kind and quan- 
tity, see statistics of the several counties accompanying the maps. 



GENESEE COUNT! 



This having been the Pioneer county, or rather the old hive 
from which counties have swarmed, a sketch of its organization 
has occurred in the course of our narrative. It remains but to add 
some statistics — such as it is intended shall accompany the map of 
each county — which taken collectively, will in a distinct form, 
enable the reader to ascertain the population and vast resources of 
the Holland Purchase in 1845; and to estimate them, by a ratio of 
increase, in 1849. The district of country embraced in the Holland 
Purchase, may date the commencement of its settlement, in 1799. 
Upon a comparison of the statistics that will be given, with those 
of other portions of the United States, it will be found, that no 
where, has there been as much consummated in a half century, in 
population, resources, wealth and improvement; and that too, as 
will have been seen, under early disadvantages, such as have no 
where been exceeded: — 

That part of the county of Genesee included within the Holland 
Purchase, lies principally on the second terrace, although the south 
part occupies a portion of the central district as described in the 
topography of the Purchase. It contains about 219,520 acres of 
land, 127,508 acres of which were under cultivation in 1845, 
according to the state census of that year. It then contained a 
population of 9,660 males, of whom 4,221 were entitled to vote; 
and 9,100 females-; 5,155 were children between 5 and 16 years 
of age, and 49 were persons of color. The year preceding, (1844,) 
the territory produced 416,000 bushels of wheat, 53,623 of barley, 




ERIE C OUNT Y 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 575 

135,344 of corn, 908 of rye, 285,131 of oats, 14,696 of buckwheat, 
3,063 of beans, 46,550 of peas, 226,946 of potatoes and 4,627 
pounds of flax. It then contained 17,306 head of neat cattle, 7,929 
cows, from which 687,582 pounds of butter and 216,613 pounds of 
cheese were made the preceding year; 6,510 horses, 98,024 sheep, 
16 churches, 3 academies, 1 female seminary, 120 common schools, 
18 grist-mills, 40 saw-mills, 36 clergymen, 18 attornies and 31 
physicians. 

[For soil, climate, timber &c. of each county, [IIFsee topography of the Holland 
Pirchase.] 



ERIE COUNTY. 



The old county of Niagara, of which Buffalo was the county site 
and from which Erie county was erected in 1821, was organized in 
1808. The first courts were held at the public house of Joseph 
Landon, in Buffalo, in June of that year. Augustus Porter was 
the first Judge, Erastus Granger, Zattu Gushing, James Brooks, 
Martin Pcndergast, Judges.* Asa Ransom was the first Sheriff, 
Louis Le Couteulx the first Glerk. The Gourt House and Jail, 
were completed in 1810 by the Holland Company. The Gourt 
House was burned in the year 1813 when Buffalo was captured and 
burned, and rebuilt soon after the war. The Jail was fired, but not 
materially injured. 

The attornies of Niagara, (Erie,) at the period of its first organ- 
ization, were: — Ebenezer Walden, Jonas Harrison, Truman Smith, 
John Root, Heman B. Potter, Alvin Sharpe, Bates Cooke, Philo 
Andrus. 

These are all that are recollected as practicing attornies before 
the war; in the first few years after the war there was added to the 
list, William Hotchkiss, Albert H. Tracy, Thomas C. Love, Ebene- 
zer F. Norton, Joseph W. Moulton, James Sheldon, Samuel Caldwell 
Benjamin G. Chaplin, W. A. Moseley. — Messrs. Potter and Walden 
are the only survivors of the earliest Attornies. Judge Walden is 
now 69 years of age; retired from practice, but yet active, exhib- 
iting less of mental and physical infirmity, than usual, at his 
advanced age; superintending as yet, the business appertaining to 

* The author failing to avail himself of the records of the primitire organization of 
Niagara, (Erie,) has been obliged to rely upon the memory of those who had cognizance 
of early events. Silas Hopkins, and Archibald S. Clarke, were early Judges, and may 
have been when the courts were first organized. 

37 



676 HISTORY OF THE 

a large estate. Gen. Potter, though his early cotemporary, is by 
some years his junior; his personal appearance would hardly indi- 
cate that he was one of the pioneer lawyers of the Holland Purchase. 
Erie county lies about one half, the north, on the second plateau, 
and the other, on the central district as designated in the topography 
of the Purchase. It contains about 610,600 acres of land, 224,196 
acres of which were under cultivation in 1845 according to the 
state census of that year. It then contained a population of 41,208 
males, of whom 14,631 were entitled to vote, and 37,427 females; 
20,240 were children between 5 and 16 years of age, and 847 persons 
of color. The year preceding (1845,) the territory produced 251, 
781 bushels of wheat, 40,485 of barley, 238,293 of corn, 11,007 of 
rye, 637,513 of oats, 31,592 of buckwheat, 4,636 of beans, 51.401 
of peas, 552,091 of potatoes, 17,899 of turnips, and 36,819 pounds 
of flax. It then contained 57,506 neat cattle, 26,809 milch cows, 
from which 1,728,021 pounds of butter and 1,288,780 pounds of 
cheese were made the preceding year; 148,732 sheep, 93 
churches, 3 academies, 1 female seminary, 285 common schools, 45 
grist-mills, 209 saw-mills, 125 Clergymen, 103 attornies, and 139 
physicians. 

CHAUTAUQUE COUNTY.* 



Chautauque county was taken from Genesee in 1808. At that 
period, the population not being sufficient to entitle it to a separate 
organization, it remained a part of Genesee until 1811; though the 
location of the county buildings at Mayville, was made soon after 
the division of counties occurred. The commissioners for fixing 
upon the county site, were, Jonas Williams, Isaac Sutherland, and 
Asa Ransom. The record they made of the manner they had 
discharged their duties, describes in general terms the spot they had 
designated, and that there sliould be no mistake in identifying it. 
they add that they have "erected a large hemlock post." 

In the final organization of the county, in 1811, Zattu Gushing 
was appointed first Judge, Matthew Pendergast, Philo Orton, 
Jonathan Thompson, and William Alexander, associate Judges; 
David Eason, Sheriff, and John E. Marshall, Clerk. The first Court 

*0r, " Ja-da-queh;" as the author entertains the hope that the empire agricultural 
county of the Holland Purchase, in the course of its rapid improvements, will improve 
its name, by adopting the preferable one, which would better correspond with Indian 
tradition. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 57? 

of Common Pleas was held at Mayville, in June, 1811. The 
Attornies then residing in the county and admitted to practice, 
were, Messrs. Patton and Brackett, Jacob Houghton, Daniel G. 
Garnsey, Caspar Rouse, and Anselm Potter. Rouse emigrated to 
Missouri where he was killed in an affray; Brackett was killed at 
the capture of Buffalo, in the war of 1812. Messrs. Houghton 
and Garnsey are the only survivors, of the earliest members of the 
bar of Chatauque. James Mullett was a resident of the county 
in 1811; a clerk in the pioneer store of Gen. Risley. He afterwards 
studied law in the office of J. Houghton, Esq. was admitted to 
practice; is now one of the Judges of the Supreme Court. 

Gen. Leverett Barker, was foreman of the first Grand Jury. He 
was also the first tanner and currier in the county; and at a later 
period the founder of the flourishing village of Versailles, on the 
Cattaraugus creek. He died in 1847. 

Chautauque county lies between the dividing ridge and lake Erie, 
on the dividing ridge and in the valley of Allegany. It contains 
about 668,200 acres of land, 252,784 acres of which were under 
cultivation in 1845, according to the state census of that year. It 
then contained a population of 23,453 males, of whom 10,159 were 
entitled to vote, and 23,095 females; 129 persons of color, and 
9,552 children between 5 and 16 years of age. The year prece- 
ding (1844) the territory produced 268,261 bushels of wheat, 32,833 
of barley, 313,121 of corn, 3,158 of rye, 448,835 of oats, 20,000 
of buckwheat, 3,183 of beans, 28,746 of peas, 6,816,869 of pota- 
toes, 22,143 of turnips and 129,749 pounds of flax. It then con- 
tained 66,885 neat cattle, 25,024 cows, from which 2,130,303 pounds 
of butter, and 974,474 pounds of cheese were made the preceding 
year; 10,506 horses, 235,403 sheep, 73 churches, 4 academies, 307 
common schools, 43 grist mills, 206 saw mills, 106 clergymen, 61 
attornies and 90 ohvsicians. 



578 HISTORY OF THE 

CATTARAUGUS COUNTY. 



The county of Cattaraugus, although set off as a separate county 
in the act of 1808, had no separate organization until 1817. Up to 
this period, it was merged with the old county of Niagara. 

The first term of the courts was held at Hamilton, (Olean,) in 
July, 1817. The bench, at that period, consisted of Timothy H. 
Porter, first Judge; James Brooks, Ashbel Freeman, Francis Green, 
Judges. Israel Curtiss was the first Sheriff of the county; Daniel 
Cruger the first District Attorney; Sands Bough ton the first Clerk. 

The same commissioners who located the county site of Chau- 
tauque, in 1808, located the county site of Cattaraugus the same 
year, at Ellicottville. It would seem that, as in the first instance, 
they were obliged to erect a land mark. They certify in refer- 
ence to Ellicottville, that they " erected a large iron-wood post" to 
designate the spot. A Court House and Jail were erected soon 
after the organization of the county, which were burned in 1829; 
but immediately rebuilt. The Court House is of brick, two stories 
high, forty feet square; there is a stone Jail, and brick Clerk's 
oflUce. An ample Public Square was donated by the Holland 
Company. 

Mr. Schoolcraft, in reference to the constant succession of hills 
and dales in Cattaraugus, says, they resemble " a piece of rumpled 
calico." The reader may imagine Ellicottville as occupying one 
of the deepest indentations, or " rumples." The location is pictur- 
esque in the extreme; and the scenery of the village and its neigh- 
borhood, would be a fine subject for the pencil of the artist. An 
interval of about half a mile in width, upon the Great Valley 
creek, furnishes a beautiful village site; but it is hemmed in with 
hills whose altitudes would well entitle them to be called moun- 
tains. It is a village hid away in one of the deep gorges of that 
region; and yet a happy and contented population have found it, 
and are making it a pleasant abiding place; in the way of business, 
a brisk and large participator in the progress and improvement of 
the southern portion of the Holland Purchase. The sojourner there, 
who sees high elevations upon either hand, is astonished when 
told that he is over fifteen hundred feet above tide-water; though 
he feels that he is breathing pure air, and that he is in a bracing 
and healthy atmosphere. 

Cattaraugus county lies principally in the valley of the Allegany 



/ 




HOLLAND PURCHASE. 579 

and on the dividing ridge; it includes the whole of the sterile 
tract south of the Allegany river, described in the topography oi 
the Purchase. It contains about 852,500 acres of land, 157,442 
acres of which were under cultivation in 1845, according to the 
state census of that year. It then contained a population of 15,447 
males, of whom 6,588 were entitled to vote; 14,692 females; 69 
persons of color; 8,945 children between five and sixteen years of 
age. The year preceding, (1844.) the territory produced 177,927 
bushels of wheats 13,671 of barley, 96,540 of corn, 934 of rye, 
459,770 of oats, 24,026 of buckwheat, 1,830 of beans, 18,370 of 
peas, 506,919 of potatoes, 20,813 of turnips, and 42,886 pounds of 
flax. It then contained 45,256 neat cattle, 15,582 cows, from 
which 1,284,635 pounds of butter and 567,867 pounds of cheese 
were made the proceeding year; 6,908 horses, 103,780 sheep, 30 
churches, 220 common schools, 24 grist mills, 144 saw mills, 67 
clergymen, 28 attornies, and 46 physicians. 



ALLEGANY COUNTY. 



Allegany county was taken from Genesee in 1806. That part 
of the county included within the Holland Purchase, lies in that 
district called the Valley of the Allegany, although some of its 
waters pass into Genesee river. It contains about 276,500 acres 
of land, 75,457 acres of which were under cultivation in 1845, 
according to the state census of that year. It then contained a 
population of 7,560 males, of whom 3,347 were entitled to vote, 
7,429 females; 4,410 were children between 5 and 16 years of age, 
and 56 persons of color. The year preceding, (1844) the territory 
produced 251,781 bushels of wheat, (mostly spring wheat.) 7,008 
of barley, 42,103 of corn, 629 of rye, 173,473 of oats, 16,936 
of buckwheat, 591 of beans, 16,799 of peas, 212,206 of potatoes, 
6,574 of turneps, and 38,820 pounds of flax. It then contained 
19,859 head of neat cattle, 8,111 milch cows, from which 584,204 
pounds of butter and 310,935 pounds of cheese were made the 
preceding year; 3,793 horses, 56,878 sheep, 22 churches, 113 com- 
mon schools; 15 grist mills, 118 saw mills, 45 clergymen, 15 attor- 
nies, and 32 physicians. 



580 HISTORY OF THE 

WYOMING COUNTY. 



Wyoming county was erected from Genesee in 1841. The 
courts were organized at a public house at East Orangeville, in 
June, of the same year. The commissioners named in the act of 
division, for locating the county site, were, Davis Hurd, John 
Thompson, and Peter R. Reed. They decided in favor of Warsaw; 
East Orangeville and Weathersfield springs were both competitors 
for the location. The act organizing the county, authorised the 
comptroller to loan to it ten thousand dollars for the erection of 
public buildings. The building commissioners, were, John A. M' 
Elwaine, Paul Richards, Jonathan Perry. Trumbull Gary, Esq. of 
Batavia, gave to the county an ample public square, upon which 
were erected a neat and commodious brick Court House, Jail and 
Clerk's office. The Court House was completed in 1842; previous 
to that however, the courts had been removed from Orangeville, 
and held in the Masonic Hall in the village of Warsaw. The 
primitive Judges of the county were as follows: — Paul Richards, 
First Judge, James Sprague, Peter Patterson, Joseph Johnson. 
W. Riley Smith was the first District Attorney; N. Wolcott, the 
first clerk; W. R. Groger, the first Sheriff. Upon motion of Isaac 
N. Stoddard, at the opening of the first Court in Orangeville, the fol- 
lowing attornies, most of whom, if not all, were residents of the 
county, were admitted to practice: — John B. Skinner, James J. 
Petit, Harvey Putnam, Lewis W. Pray, Moulton Farnham, F. C. 
D. M'Kay, William Mitchell, Linus W. Thayer, Leverett Spring, 
James R, Doolittle, Levi Gibbs, Miles Moffitt, Harley F. Smith, 
W. Riley Smith, Isaac N. Stoddard. 

Some sketches of the pioneer settlement of Warsaw, have already 
been given. An early and for a long period, a prominent citizen 
of the Holland Purchase — Judge Simeon Cummings of Batavia — 
became identified with the village soon after the war of 1812. He 
became proprietor, by purchase from Judge Webster, of forty acres 
of what constitutes the north-west portion of the village, including 
the principal water power. He built a grist mill and an oil mill in 
1817. In 1819, the Hon. Trumbull Cary, of Batavia, became 
the proprietor of the property. Descriptions of things as they now 
are, are not within the province of pioneer history; but, lest the 
reader should have never wandered from the main east and west 
thoroughfares of the Holland Purchase, and witnessed the progress 




> 



\' 




HOLLAND PURCHASE. 581 

and improvement in the southern portion of it, he may be assured 
that he will seldom see a more pleasant rural village, than is the 
county site of Wyoming; or one which gives better indications of 
the thrift and prosperity of the country that surrounds it. The 
public edifices are neat and substantial; the private dwellings have 
about them the indication of comfort, convenience, economy and 
good taste. Gen, M' Slwaine, long identified with the prosperity of 
the place, is the landlord of a public house there, of which he was 
the founder, which well deserves a rank with the first class hotels 
of Western New York. 

That part of the county of Wyoming included within the Holland 
Purchase, lies principally in the central district, as described in the 
topography of the Purchase. It contains about 311,040 acres of 
land, 156,246 acres of which were under cultivation in 1845, accord- 
ing to the state census of that year. It then contained a population 
of 11,925 males, of whom 4,331 were entitled to vote, 11,761 
females; 6,941 were children between 5 and 16 years of age, and 
40 persons of color. The year preceding, (1844) the territory 
produced 164,131 bushels of wheat, 33,096 of barley, 65,808 of 
corn, 778 of rye, 471,688 of oats, 21,067 of buckwheat, 2,387 of 
beans, 30,950 of peas, 381,064 of potatoes, 12,458 of turnips and 
123,218 pounds of flax. It then contained 32,003 head of neat 
cattle, 12,706 milch cows, from which 571,588 pounds of butter 
and 732,004 pounds of cheese were made the preceding year; 
6,330 horses, 140,342 sheep, 46 churches, 2 academies, 154 common 
schools, 29 grist mills, 64 saw mills, 57 clergymen, 33 attornies and 
42 physicians. 



ORLEANS COUNTY. 



The county of Orleans was erected from Genesee, in 1824. 
The first courts were organized in June, 1825, at the house of 
Selah Bronson, in the village of Gaines. The bench of the county 
at that period, consisted of Elijah Foot, First Judge; S. M. Moody, 
Cyrus Harwood, Eldridge Farwell, William Penniman, Judges. 
The early attornies of the county, were Henry R. Curtiss, Alexis 
"Ward, George W. Flemming, Seymour Tracy, Orange Butler, A. 
Hyde Cole, W. W. Ruggles, Cyrus Harwood, W. S. Moody. 
William Lewis was the first Sheriff of the county, Orson Nichoson 
the first Clerk, and Orange Butler the first District Attorney. 



582 HISTORY OF THE 

The aggregate vote of the county, at the first election, in 1825, 
was 1,702. 

The site was located at Albion in 1825, upon lands conveyed for 
that purpose, by Nehemiah IngersoU. The village of Gaines was 
the only competitor for the location. 

That part of the county of Orleans included within the Holland ' 
Purchase, lies principally on the first or lower plateau, the south 
part — being nearly one-third — lying on the second or upper pla- 
teau, as described in the topography of the Purchase. It contains 
about 195,840 acres of land, 102,924 acres of which were under 
cultivation in 1845, according to the state census of that year. It 
then contained a population of 9,858 males, of whom 4,341 were 
entitled to vote, and 9,714 females; 5,569 were children between 
5 and 16 years of age, and 63 were persons of color. The year 
preceding, (1844) the territory produced 528,961 bushels of wheat, 
14,593 of barley, 16,060 of corn, 40 of rye, 183,656 of oats, 6,062 
of buckwheat, 2,560 of beans, 37,885 of peas, 215,626 of potatoes, 
8,682 of turneps, and 12,330 pounds of flax. It then contained 
14,992 head of neat cattle, 8,273 cows, from which 571,588 pounds 
of butter and 174,721 pounds of cheese were made the preceding 
year; 6,897 horses, 68,358 sheep, 33 churches, 3 academies, 1 
female seminary, 100 common schools, 17 grist mills, 43 saw mills. 
47 clergyman, 26 attornies, and 43 physicians. 



NIAGARA COUNTY. 



When the division of the old county of Niagara took place, in 
1821, although Niagara retained the name, the county buildings, 
and of course, the old county organization, belonged to Erie. The 
separate organization of the Courts of the present county of Niagara 
took place in May, 1821. The first Courts were held at the school 
house, in the village of Lewiston. The act making the division of 
the old county of Niagara, appointed Lothrop Cooke, Slierifl^, and 
Oliver Grace, Clerk, of the new county. Silas Hopkins was first 
Judge; James Van Horn, and Robert Flemming, were the two 
additional Judges. The first Circuit Court held in the county, was 
at Lewiston, Judge Piatt presiding. 

The first Commissioners to locate county buildings, were, Erastus 
Root, Jesse Hawley, William Britton. Mr. Britton died soon 



^ 




V 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 583 

after his appointment. Messrs. Root and Hawley, upon visiting 
the county in 1821, disagreed; the former taking ground in favor 
of Lewiston as the county site, but expressing a willingness to 
compromise and make the site at Molyneux's; the latter adhering 
to Lockport. At the next session of the Legislature, a new Commis- 
sion was instituted, consisting of James M'Kown, Abraham Keyser 
and Julius H. Hatch. In July, 1822, they fixed upon Lockport as the 
county site; locating the buildings upon two acres of land, deeded to 
the county for that purpose, by William M. Bond. The Courts were 
held at Lewiston until July, 1823, at which time the Circuit Court 
was held in an upper room of the old Mansion House, in Lockport, 
Judge Rochester presiding. The Court House was completed, and 
the first court held in it, in January, 1825. At this period, Samuel 
DeVeaux had been added to the bench of Judges, before named. 

At the first annual election, after the organization of the county 
— in Nov. 1822 — Almon H. Millard was elected Sheriff; Asahel 
Johnson, Clerk; Benjamin Barlow, Member of Assembly. The 
duties of Clerk, principally devolved upon James F. Mason, Esq. 
during the term of Mr. Johnson, and he was elected as his successor. 
The aggregate vote of the county, at the first election, was 1,324. 

The members of the bar of the county, in '23, were, John Birdsall, 
W. Hotchkiss, Z. H. Colvin, Bates Cooke, J. F. Mason, Elias Ransom, 
Hiram Gardner, Theodore Chapin, Sebride Dodge, Harvey Leonard. 

Niagara county lies about one half, (the north,) on the first or 
lower plateau, and the other on the second or upper plateau, as 
designated in the topography of the Purchase. It contains about 
329,500 acres of land, 148,108 acres of which, were under culti- 
vation in 1845, according to the state census of that year. It then 
contained a population of 17,827 males, of whom 6,784 were 
entitled to vote, and 16,724 females; 9,552 were children between 
5 and 16 years of age and 243 persons of color. The year pre- 
ceding (1844,) the territory produced 713,318 bushels of wheat, 
58,340 of barley, 188,166 of corn, 498 of rye, 292,099 of oats, 
20,101 of buckwheat, 2,185 of beans, 84,626 of peas, 333,658 of 
potatoes, and 170 pounds of flax. It then contained 27,836 head 
of neat cattle, 11,924 of cows, from which 861,300 pounds of 
butter and 154,976 pounds of cheese were made the preceding 
year; 8,614 horses, 80,549 sheep, 49 churches, 1 academy, 1 female 
seminary, 156 common schools, 14 grist mills, 58 saw mills, 59' 

clergymen, 37 attornies and 51 physicians. 
38 



PART SIXTH. 



CHAPTER I, 



BRIEF REMINISCENCES OF THE WAR OF 1812. 



[General histories of the war have been multipUed to an extent that brings them 
within the reach of all classes of readers; it was the original intention of the author, 
however, to embody in this work a brief account of most of the events upon the Niagara 
frontier, and for that purpose he prepared himself with materials. When collected, 
their magnitude, the extent to which it would be necessary to go to preserve an unbroken 
chain of events, with any degree of minuteness, soon convinced him o-f the impracti- 
cability of the original design. The subject upon which he could bestow but a few 
pages, required three -hundred; and that without going but incidentally beyond local 
events. He is, therefore, under the necessity of disposing of the subject, at present, 
with a few brief reminiscences, that will serve to illustrate the condition of the Holland 
Purchase when the war commenced; its effects upon settlement and progress; and an 
account, somewhat in detail, of events, the effect and bearing of which, had a direct 
relation with the main subjects of his history. The materials in his hands, and which 
can now be obtained, are ample for a separate volume, confined to local reminiscences 
of the war; so full of interest, throughout, as to render it difficult to discriminate, in the 
selection of a few pages. At a period of more leisure, it is his present intention to pre- 
pare and publish in a cheap form, a separate volume of some three hundred pages, 
devoted to the local events of the war of 1812, and such portions of its general history 
as are necessary to a connected and intelligent narrative.] 

There are no statistics from which the precise amount of the 
population of the Holland Purchase, at the commencement of the 
war of 1812, can be ascertained. In 1811, it was, in the estimation 
of Mr. Ellicott, a little over 23,000; in 1812, probably not far from 
25,000; distributed as has been indicated in our account of the 
progress of settlement. The only portion of the entire Purchase 
where there was anything like compact settlement, was in the few 
small villages, and upon the Buffalo road. Mr. Mellish, who was 
in this country in 1811, in an account of his journey from Buffalo 
to Batavia, says, that " the houses were so thick along the road" 
that he " was seldom out of sight of one." This was far more 
than could have been said of any other road upon the Purchase at 
that period. Aside from the villages, there were more framed 
tenements upon this road, than upon all the rest of the Purchase; 



HOLLAiND PURCHASE. 585 

indeed, elsewhere, there was not one settler in an hundred that had 
dispensed with his primitive log house, and not one in fifty that had 
even a framed barn. Away from the main thoroughfare, the popula- 
tion existed in detached neighborhoods and isolated families; it was 
in but few instances that settlers had fifty acres under improvement; 
the average extent of improvements upon the entire Purchase did 
not exceed fifteen acres. The Buflfalo road — bad enough, as all 
will recollect — was by far the best road at the period of which 
we are speaking; all else, even those most traveled, were but the 
primitive roads of a new country; but few of the streams were 
bridged, and but the deepest mud holes crosswayed. A framed 
bridge over a stream was a novelty; and a chinked or covered 
crossway was a luxury that marked a neighborhood that was get- 
ting ahead of the country generally in the march of improvement. 
Away from the villages, and oft' the Buffalo road, not over one 
in ten, of all the public houses, were other than log tenements. 
Such, briefly, was the condition of the Holland Purchase in 1812, 
Add to this, the consideration that nine-tenths of the population 
were poor; struggling for a scanty subsistence upon small patches 
of openings in the forest; the soil as yet but partially subdued; and 
it will be seen that the frontier region was but illy pi'epared to 
encounter the shock of war in its midst; to adapt itself to its ex- 
igencies, and participate in its burthens and dang-ers, as its local 
position rendered necessary. 

It was as illy provided for war, in its military, as in its civil 
condition. Mihtary organization under our then imperfect militia 
system, had been but partially consummated. Here and there, 
were those who had participated in the war of the Revolution; 
but those few were legally exempt from military duty; the 
local militia consisted of those whose military experience and 
discipline, had been acquired in no better school than the semi- 
annual backwood's muster; an enrolment, an answering to names; 
an imperfect "inspection and review;" and, generally, an easv 
compliance with requirements, far from being either stringent or 
effective. But, as in other similar cases, the exigencies of war 
converted the peaceable pioneer settlers, from raw and inexpe- 
rienced soldiers, into brave and eflfective ones, as the local annals 
of the war often evince. There were no better soldiers upon the 
lines, in the war of 1812, than those who were called out, or came 
out as volunteers from the backwoods of the Holland Purchase: 



586 HISTORY OF THE 

and upon the other hand, justice, perhaps, requires us to say, that 
there were no worse ones. 

There had been forebodings of the event of war in the proceed- 
ings of Congress, and in some preliminary military preparations; 
and yet the arrival of the news of its actual existence, created 
consternation and alarm. The proclamation of President Madison 
was carried through the country by expresses, which reached Fort 
Niagara on the 26th of June, 1812, and Col. Swift at Black Rock, 
the same day. The express riders spread the news as they 
passed upon the main roads, the Buffalo road and the Batavia and 
Lewiston road, and thence it spread in every direction, fram 
settlement to settlement. The usual avocations of life were 
suspended; here and there, in all the detached neighborhoods, 
were small collections of citizens, deliberating and consulting upon 
measures of safety, defence or flight. Thg more timid resolved 
upon the latter alternative, while the more resolute determined to 
remain and abide the consequences. There was a general feeling 
of insecurity, induced by a knowledge of the fact, that the enemy 
upon the Canadian frontiers were prepared even for a war of 
invasion, while upon this side, the preparations for defence were 
^inadequate. Many, over-estimating the immediate danger, made 
Ihasty preparations, and were soon on their way, seeking asylums 
beyond the Genesee river. The singular spectacle was presented 
upon most of the main thoroughfares, leading east from the 
Holland Purchase, of families fleeing from supposed danger, 
meeting emigrants, who were undismayed by the terrors of a 
frontier residence. Many families who left, returned after a few 
weeks' absence. 

The news of the declaration of war had reached Canada twelve 
hours before it was received upon our frontier. John Jacob Astor, 
had sent an express from New York, announcing it to Thomas 
Clark, Esq., of Queenston. This was a measure of precaution, 
having reference to the fur trade at the west, and the safety of the 
cargoes of fur that might be coming down the lakes. In conse- 
quence, preparations for hostilities and overt acts of hostility, had 
actually preceded the reception of the news upon this side. As 
soon as the news was received by the British authorities, all 
Americans in Canada were arrested and detained; among whom 
was Lieut. Gansevoort, of Fort Niagara, who happen-ed to be at 
Ihe time, on the wrong side of the lines. At Buffab, the citizens 



HOLLAiND PURCHASE. 587 

were first apprised of the existence of war, by the capture of a 
small vessel, which had just started from Black Rock with a load 
of salt, bound up the lake. The vessel, cargo and crew, were 
taken to Fort Erie. The tidings of all this, did not fail to reach 
the greater portion of Western New York simultaneously with the 
news of the declaration of war. All was bustle and confusion; 
then followed days and weeks of musters, and drafting of militia, 
marching to the lines in small squads from the back settlements, 
and in consolidated ones, along the main Buffalo road. Batavia 
was soon converted from a quiet country village, into a military 
rendezvous. Then was heard there, the constant rolling of the 
drum, the shrill tones of the fife, the din of weapons of war, 
the rattling of the wheels of baggage wagons; troops were 
arriving and departing in constant succession. 

On the 21st of May, 1812, there were but six hundred men under 
arms upon the Niagara frontier, beside those attached to the garrison 
at Niagara. These had been called out in pursuance of an act of 
Congress, and the I'equisition of the Governor of the State. The 
requisition ordered a draft of miltia, but generally, the force was 
composed of volunteers. They were placed under the command 
of Col. Swift; several volunteer companies were added previous to 
the declaration of war; on the 4th of July, eight days after the 
news of the declaration of war had been received, the aggregate 
militia force upon the frontier, was about three thousand. Soon 
after the declaration of war, Gen. William Wadsworth assumed 
command. On the 28th of July, the command devolved upon Gen. 
Amos Hall, and on the 11th August, upon Major General Van 
Rensselaer, who established his head quarters at Lewiston, 

Such was the state of alarm upon the Holland Purchase, that 
Mr. Ellicott deemed it necessary to quiet it, by an address to the 
settlers dated on the 4th of July, in which he assures them of the 
effectual guarding of the lines, and of the safety of the whole 
region from invasion. 

War preparations were as active in Canada as upon this side of 
the lines. When the declaration of war came, the state of defence 
there was by far the best; there were from six to seven hundred 
regular troops stationed between the lakes, along the Niagara river. 
The militia of the Upper Province were ordered out en mas»e. 
While there was no artillery upon this side, until some weeks after 
the declaration of war, upon the other were over one hundred 



588 HISTORY OF THE 

pieces. Fort Erie was put in repair, a redoubt was thrown up 
opposite Black Rock; a battery erected at Chippewa, and another 
below the Falls. Defences were also erected on Queenston Heights 
directly opposite Lewiston village, on the river opposite Youngston, 
and Fort George was strengthened. One of the incipient steps in 
Canada, was to secure the services of the Indians in the Province. 
This had been too long a favorite policy of England, to be aban- 
doned. Gen. Brock, the acting Governor of the Province, assumed 
the immediate command of the troops. 

The prompt assembling of troops upon our frontier had the effect 
to quiet alarm, and many families who had left returned to their 
homes. After the first turmoil and bustle were over, there suc- 
ceeded comparative quiet; weeks and months of inactivity upon the 
lines; the usual avocations were partially resumed in the settlements, 
though, frequently disturbed by militia drafts and harrassing, unfoun- 
ded rumors of actual or contemplated incursions of the British 
and Indians. There was little real cause for anticipating danger 
of this nature, for the preparations upon the other side were 
wholly defensive ones, and the state of alarm among the inhabitants 
tliere, was even greater than here. So far as the respective inhab- 
ilants upon each side of the lines were concerned, there was the 
singular spectacle presented of mutual fear of invasion. There was 
oven a greater fleeing from the lines in Canada than upon this side. 

One of the most fruitful sources of apjirehension and alai'm in 
the earlier stages of the war, was the fear that the Seneca Indians 
would revive their ancient predilections, and be found allies of the 
British and Canadian Indians. Their position was at first enigmat- 
ical — undefined. Their chiefs, prominent among whom was Red 
Jacket, at that period, counseled and maintained neutrality; and 
neutrality was unfavorably construed by the border settlers. Their 
position of neutrality was, however, early secured by a talk in 
council. But when these apprehensions were partially quieted, 
every breeze that came from Canada, or from the west, brought 
with it to the scattered border settlements of the Holland Purchase, 
rai^aors rife with accounts of contemplated Indian leagues, and 
banded descents with the tomahawk and scalping knife. Judge 
Erastus Granger, the then Government Agent of the Senecas, took 
un early opportunity to hold a council with them and get assuran- 
ces of neutrality. In a letter irom Mr. Ellicott to Mr. Busti, dated 
July 7, 1812, he assures him of the entire safety of the country 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 589 

from invasion — of comparative quiet, and adds: — "I send by the 
mail that carries this letter, our last nevsrspaper, which contains a 
speech made by an Indian chief to the inhabitants of this village, 
and our reply, by which it will be seen that our Indians are disposed 
to be on good terms with us — and that they have declared the 
Mohawk Indians, residing in Canada, out of the confederation of the 
Six Nations, and of course, -enemies in war, in peace, friends.''' 
This position of neutrality, partially preserved in the first stages 
of the war, was not long maintained. The Senecas, rightly deter- 
mining their true position and interests, soon became fast friends to 
the United States, — useful armed allies, in several contests. 

Having thus given a brief pioneer sketch of war preparations: 
the condition of this region when the trying and eventful crisis 
arrived; and arrayed the combatants, ready to commence a long 
series of engagements, to encounter the vicissitudes and the vary- 
ing fortunes of war; we proceed to occupy an allotted and 
stinted space, with two prominent events, selected for their 
more immediate bearing upon the frontier settlers of the Holland 
Purchase, and their prominent participation in them; and for the 
additional reason that, while a faithful relation of the one is humilia- 
ting to pride of country, and sullies the reputation of our citizen sol- 
diery, that of the other elevates the former, and redeems the latter. 

The calamities with which the Niagara frontiers were visited, in 
the winter of 1813 and '14, had their origin, as it is well known, in 
the injudicious (not to say wanton,) destruction of Newark, now 
Niagara village. After nearly two years' duration of a war, which, 
upon this frontier at least, had been wretchedly conducted; a vas- 
cillating policy prevailing that, even now, after the lapse of thirty- 
six years, is a mystery yet unraveled; the whole sum of the tri- 
umphs of our arms, was the military possession of this small town, 
and its garrison. Fort George. This constituted our only foothold 
in Canada, and that, as it will be seen, was to be most shamefully 
abandoned. 

The withdrawal of the entire regular force from this frontier, had 
left Gen. M'Clure, of the New York State militia, in command of 
the conquered territory. After an unprofitable occupancy of a few 
weeks, he ordered the evacuation of Fort George, and applied the 
torch to the village of Newark, destroying every house in the 
village, and leaving its population houseless, exposed to the inclem- 
ency of the season. 



590 HISTORY OF THE 

M'Clure and his army took shelter in Fort Niagara, and the 
abandoned ground was soon occupied by Col. Murray with a force 
of five hundred British soldiers and Indians. The news of this 
rash and improvident act, m-et with unqualified disapprobation 
every where; and especially upon th-e frontier, where the blow of 
retribution was soon to fall; among those who justly appreciated 
the penalty they must pay for the act of folly. If, as was alleged, 
by the few apologists of Gen. M'Clure, it was an act of retaUation 
for British spoliations elsewhere, it was an untimely one, taking 
place under circumstances that insured a heavy penalty. The 
weak defences then upon our frontier, to encounter the retaliation 
that but a little foresight would have anticipated, should have 
counseled prudence, if not a warfare more in consonance with 
humanity. But we drop a fruitful source of comment and 
reflection, that belongs to a general history of th« war, and 
proceed to sketch briefly the consequences that followed; and 
they were not slow in coming. 

Gen. M'Clure remaining but a short time at Niagara, took up 
his head-quarters at Buffalo, from which place he, in a short time, 
had occasion to address a dispatch to the Secretary of War, 
containing, in his own language, and what must have been, the 
"mortifying intelligence of the loss of Fort Niagara."' With that 
disgraceful surrender, even the partial reader of war history is 
familiar. 

The force that landed at the Five Mile Meadows, under Col. 
Murray, was about 500 — they completed the landing before day- 
break. 

A party of Indians, leaving the main body, came up to Lewiston, 
— arriving about sunrise. There was stationed there but a small 
force under the command of Major Bennett, that retreated with 
the loss of six or seven men; among whom were two sons of 
Horatio Jones. The attack upon the village, was after the Indian 
fashion, a sudden surprise. There was little of warning; the 
Indians preceding for a few minutes, a detachment of British 
soldiers, swarmed out of the woods, and commenced an indiscrimi- 
nate shooting down of flying citizens, plundering and burning. 
Among the slain in the attack on Lewiston, was Di*. Alvord, who 
has been mentioned as the early physician at Batavia. He was 
shot from his horse while endeavoring to make his retreat. Miles 
GiUitt and a younger brother, sons of the early pioneer, Solomon 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 591 

Gillitt; Thomas Marsh, William Gardner, Tiffany and Finch. 
That day, December 19th, the Ridge Road presented some of the 
harshest features of war and invasion. The inhabitants upon the 
frontier, en masse, were retreating eastward; men, women and 
children; the Tuscarora Indians having a prominent position in the 
flight. The residents upon the Ridge that had not got the start of 
the main body, fell in with it as it approached them. There was 
a small arsenal at the first four corners, west of Howell's creek, a 
log building, containing a number of barrels of powder, several 
hundred stand of arms, and a quantity of fixed ammunition. 
Making a stand there, the more timid were for firing the magazine 
and continuing the retreat. The braver councils prevailed to a 
small extent. They made sufficient demonstrations to turn back 
a few Indian scouts that had followed up the retreat to plunder 
such as fell in the rear. The mass made no halt at the arsenal, 
but pushed on in an almost unbroken column, until they arrived at 
Forsyth's, where they divided, a part taking the Lewiston road, 
and seeking asylums in Genesee county, and over the river; and a 
part along the Ridge Road, and off" from it in the new settlements 
of what is now Orleans and Monroe counties, and in what is now 
Wayne, and the north part of Ontario counties. All kinds of 
vehicles were put in requisition. It was a motley throng, flying 
from the torch and the tomahawk of an invading foe, without hardly 
the show of a military organization to cover their retreat. 

Almost the only resistance that the invaders encountered, was 
an attack upon I^ewiston Heights, in their attempted advance to 
Niagara Falls, by Maj. Mallory, and his small corps of Canadian 
volunteers, who were stationed at Schlosser. They compelled 
them to retreat below the mountain, and afterwards contested the 
ground to Tonawanda, with a bravery that was the more creditable, 
as it was a rare article at that unfortunate period. And it should 
be mentioned to the credit of a small band of Tuscarora Indians, 
that they effectually aided the flight of the citizens of Lewiston, 
by firing upon the Indian scouts that were following them up, from 
an ambush, upon the side of the mountain, near where the road 
from their village comes upon the Ridge. It helped to turn back 
the pursuers. 

There are many interesting reminiscences connected with the at- 
tack upon Lewiston and the flight of its citizens, but a small portion 
of which can be given in this brief notice of the events of the war. 



592 HISTORY OF THE 

At the period of the invasion, Judge Lothrop Cooke, was an 
invaUd, having had, but a short time previous, one of his legs 
amputated. He wsls laid upon an ox-sled, and accompanied by his 
brother, the late Hon. Bates Cooke. When they had proceeded 
but a few miles upon the Ridge, a scout of five Indians overtook 
them, and ordered a halt. Bates Cooke seized a gun that was lying 
upon a sled directly behind them, fired, and shot one of the Indians 
through the neck. He fell from his horse, jumped upon his feet, 
and after running about fifteen rods, fell and died. Mr. C. having 
no farther means of defence, ran, the Indians making two ineflfectual 
shots at him in his retreat. The firing of the guns brought some 
Tuscarora Indians to the spot, who fired upon the British Indians 
that remained, and compelled them to turn back; the sled with the 
mvalid passing on in safety. In the pocket of the dead Indian, was 
found a paper addressed to the Indian Agent at Niagara, saying 
that the bearer was an " Ottawa brave, worthy of being entrusted 
with any daring expedition." 

During the succeeding summer, the British being in possession of 
Fort Niagara, small marauding parties, generally Indians, occa- 
sionally visited the settlers who had ventured back to their homes 
in the neighborhood. Upon one occasion, an Indian strolled from 
the Fort alone, and passing through the woods, came out upon the 
Ridge at the house of Sparrow Sage, three miles east of Lewiston. 
Entering the house, he found Mrs. Sage and a female companion 
unprotected, and made them his prisoners. Ordering them into the 
woods, and directing their course toward the Fort, the companion 
of Mrs. Sage made her escape, and hastily apprised Mr. Sage of 
his wife's captivity. He pursued — overtook the captor and cap- 
tive, and inflicting a severe wound upon the Indian with an axe, 
caused him to release Mrs. Sage, and save himself by flight. It 
was an exploit of heroism, chivalrous, in view of the relation that 
existed between the rescuer and the rescued, worthy of a rank 
with the best and bravest deeds that are recorded in the history of 
the border wars of the Revolution. 

There is a solitary grave upon the Ridge road, near the eastern 
extremity of Hopkins' Marsh. It is that of a teamster whose 
name was Mead. He was conveying some household furniture 
from Lewiston, in the morning of the invasion. An Indian over- 
took and shot him. This was the farthest advance that either the 
British or Indians made upon the Ridge road. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 593 

Three or four days after the British obtained possession of Fort 
Niagara, a scouting party sallied out with orders to proceed down 
the lake as far as the Eighteen Mile creek, and burn every tene- 
ment. The leading object of the expedition was the destruction 
of the mills of Judge Van Horn, where som^e flour destined for 
our army was stored. The order was pretty thoroughly executed; 
in twenty-four hours the scattered settlers along the lake road, and 
at the mouth of the Eighteen, were as houseless as were those of 
the frontier, from Fort Niagara to Tonawanda; save a few 
dwellings that were saved by the commanding officer, against 
orders. Seldom has there been a more peaceable and humane 
march of invaders through a conquered territory. The orders of 
the officer, from his superior, were stringent, and even sanguinary; 
but he managed to discharge his duty according to the dictates of 
humanity. In several instances he ordered his own men to assist 
in removing some of the most necessary articles of household fur- 
niture, before firing houses; and when the mill of Judge Van Horn 
was fired, he ordered several barrels of flour to be rolled out for 
the use of the families he had reluctantly made destitute. The 
author regrets that he cannot fix upon his name with certainty, and 
record it with this tribute of praise so well deserved; one informant 
says it was Captain Sherwood, and another, that it was Lieutenant 
Williams, 

The invaders returned to Fort Niagara, taking back with them 
fifteen or sixteen men as prisoners, and leaving such women and 
children as had not fled before them, unharmed. Among the pris- 
oners was Reuben Wilson, Esq. The old gentleman, in relating 
these events to the author, closed by saying: — "Myself and neigh- 
bors were retained eight days at the fort, and then paroled. 
Returning, we gathered up what was left of our effects, and went 
east, scattering along the Ridge Road principally, some going over 
the Genesee river. In a few days there was no family upon the 
lake, west of Gen. Wisner's;" [two miles below Olcott,] "except 
Messrs. Grossman's, Brewer's, and Chalmers', at the mouth of the 
Eighteen: all else was desertion and desolation. I returned in 
about three weeks, and several of my neighbors returned during 
the winter and spring; some of them, not until after the close of 
the war; and some of them never returned, having seen enough 
of the hardships of a new country, and of harassing frontier life." 

The news of all that had occurred spread terror and consterna- 



594 HISTORY OF THE 

tion throughout Western New York. A farther march of the 
invaders was anticipated; an immediate attack upon Buffalo, and 
at least an advance into the interior as far as Batavia, where there 
were an arsenal and military stores. Gen. Hall, on hearing of the 
invasion, at his residence in Bloomfield, soon collected a considera- 
ble force from General Wadsworth's Brigade, in Ontario, and 
volunteers from Genesee county, estabUshing his head-quarters at 
Batavia. An arming and organization was perfected by the 25th 
of December, and the troops marched to Buffalo. General Hall, 
in his official dispatch, says: — "I arrived at Buffalo on the morning 
of the 26th, and there found a considerable body of irregular 
troops, of various descriptions, disorganized and confused; — every 
thing wore the appearance of consternation and dismay." He 
reports the entire number of men at Buffalo, on the 26th, at a little 
over two thousand, to which was added, before the 30th, three 
hundred from Chautauque. Organization, from the short time that 
was allowed to perfect it, was necessarily imperfect. 

On the night of the 29th of December, between eleven and 
twelve o'clock, it was announced at Buffalo, that a patrol of 
mounted men, under the command of Lieut. Boughton, had been 
fired upon by a British force, that had crossed near the head 
of Grand Island, advanced, and taken possession of a battery which 
stood upon the site of the present lower village of Black Rock. 
The troops at Buffalo were immediately paraded, but not ordered 
to march upon the invaders. Gen. Hall concluding that the attack 
below was intended to draw off his force preparatory to an attack 
upon Buffalo. General Hopkins being absent at the time, the com- 
mand at Black Rock devolved upon Colonels Warren and Churchill. 
They were ordered by Gen. Hall to attack the enemy in the battery 
where they had taken position, dislodge and drive them from their 
boats. The attack, made under all the disadvantages of hasty 
preparation, in a dark night, failed to accomplish its purpose. The 
entire force was dispersed. Orders were immediatly given for the 
main force at Buffalo to march in the direction of Black Rock. A 
second attack upon the British force in the battery, by a small 
corps headed by Col. Chapin and Maj. Adams, ended like the first, 
in failure and dispersion- All that succeeded, was but a chapter 
of disasters and failures, which are principally comprised in the 
following extract from an official dispatch of Gen. Hall to Gov. 
Tompkins: — 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 595 

" As the day dawned, I discovered a detachment of the enemy's 
boats crossing to our shore, and bending their course towards the 
rear of Gen. Porter's house. I immediately ordered Col. Blakeslee to 
attack the enemy's force at the water's edge. I became satisfied as 
to the disposition and object of the enemy. Their left wing, com- 
posed of about one thousand regulars, militia, and Indians, had been 
landed below the creek, under the cover of the night. With their 
centre, consisting of four hundred royal Scots, commanded by Col. 
Gordon, the battle was commenced. The right, which was pur- 
posely weak, was landed near the main battery, merely to divert 
our force; the whole under the immediate command of Lieut. Col. 
Drummond, and led on by Maj. Gen. Riall. They were attacked 
by four field pieces in the battery at the water's edge, at the same 
time the battery from the other side of the river opened a heavy 
fire upon us, of shells, hot shot, and ball. The whole force now 
opposed to the enemy was, at most, not over six hundred men, the 
remainder having fled, in spite of the exertions of their officers. 
These few but brave men, disputed every inch of ground, with the 
steady coolness of veterans, at the expense of many valuable Hves. 
The defection of the militia, by reason of the ground on which 
they must act, left the forces engaged, exposed to the enemy's fire 
in front and flank. After standing their ground for half an hour, 
opposed by an overwhelming force and nearly surrounded, a retreat 
became necessary to their safety, and was accordingly ordered. I 
then made every effort to rally the troops, with a view to attack 
their columns as they entered the village of Buffalo, but all in vain. 
Deserted by my principal force, I fell back that night to Eleven 
Mile creek, and was forced to leave the flourishing villages of Black 
Rock and BuflTalo a prey to the enemy, which they have pillaged 
and laid in ashes. They have gained but little plunder from the 
stores; the chief loss has fallen upon individuals." 

Such is the official account of the memorable and disastrous 
events of the morning of the 30th of December. A long catalogue 
of cotemporary accounts, of personal recollections, might be added, 
which would furnish pages that belong upon the dark side of 
American war history. It was the consummation of a series of 
untoward events, which had their origin in the general bad man- 
agement of the campaign of 1813; promoted, its climax of folly 
added, by an act of wanton aggression, such as was the destruction 
of Newark, at a period when retribution was sure to follow, and be 
disastrously successful as it was; at a crisis when the efficient 
defences upon our frontiers were withdrawn, and the inadequate 
protection of a militia force, suddenly drawn from their homes at 
an inclement season, without opportunity for efficient organization. 



596 HISTORY OF THE 

substituted. The British force that landed at Black Rock was 
inferior in point of numbers, to the opposing American force, 
according to the estimates of Gen. Hall, The British official 
accounts make the whole invading force under Gen. Riall but little 
over one thousand. Upon the one hand, however, there were all 
the advantages of efficient organization, tolerable discipline, and of 
attack under cover of the darkness of night; upon the other, the 
disadvantages that have already been enumerated, to which may 
be added, cowardice and flight, disgraceful to the American arms. 
And yet the battle of Black Rock, the generally inefficient defences 
that were made against an invading foe, were not without some 
redeeming features. There were creditable and honorable acts of 
bravery, but they were isolated ones. There were those who 
stood firm in the midst of flight, until resistance seemed no longer 
of any avail. But after a few ineffectual attempts to beat back the 
invaders, it was a general rout and flight, through every avenue of 
escape from danger; and squads of armed soldiers, in many instances, 
preceded even women and children in the hasty retreat. It was 
odd enough, and disgraceful enough, but it was nevertheless a fact, 
that retreating soldiers, and even some officers, as they arrived in 
the back settlements, added to the panic and dismay, that the cooler 
headed and less timorous were endeavoring to allay. The local 
history of the war of 1812, in the aggregate, is creditable, highly 
so, to the frontier settlers upon the Holland Purchase. Never in 
the history of this or any other country has there been a more 
prompt compliance with military requisitions, attended with greater 
sacrifices, than in that crisis, throughout the whole region of West- 
ern New York. In the settlements upon the Holland Purchase, 
during more than one campaign, there might have been seen the 
small harvest fields of the new settlers, ripening for the scythe and 
the sickle, maturing and going to waste; while the owners, whose 
toil had cleared, planted, and sowed, were away, enrolled and 
under arms, in the service of their country. Improvements, as 
has been before said, were in their infancy; there would have been 
no surplus prodrce, with seasonable harvests; the reader will 
readily infer in what degree, late and often neglected harvests 
added to the distress and suffering of the inhabitants. There was 
in the whole trying and eventful crisis, on the part of the men of 
Western New York, in the main, no absence of a devotion to 
country, or willingness to defend its soil; but the events of the 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 597 

30th of December, 1813, are seldom now recurred to in the 
presence of those who witnessed them, and participated in their 
consequences, without bringing to their minds lively and painful 
recollections of imperfect and abortive measures of defence; the 
rout, the hasty, panic stricken retreat, the unnecessary surrender- 
ing of a frontier, and its then largest village, to the arms and the 
torch of an invading foe, not formidable either in numbers or mil- 
itary prowess. 

And it here may be added, in reference to the whole history of 
the war upon this frontier, that it furnished a distinct, and ever to 
be remembered demonstration of the inutility of a drafted militia. 
Where ever such troops were relied upon, there were failure and 
disaster. While the volunteer militia that came out at different 
periods, and in different corps, during the whole war, seldom failed 
to render efficient service; often competed successfully with 
regular troops, for preference in good conduct and achievements, 
upon the battle field. 

Arresting this slight digression, we will return to Buffalo, and 
detail events of easy conquest, retreat, flight, pillage and devasta- 
tion, which General Hall, in his official despatch, has so summarily 
disposed of. Before daylight, the citizens of Buffalo were fully 
apprised of the feeble and ill managed defence at Black Rock; of 
its prospect of failure. Tidings that all was hopeless, had reached 
them, and were confirmed by the hasty retreat of squads of 
militia, who were making palpable demonstrations of their innate 
love of life, in their eagerness to outstrip each other in the race 
that was taking them beyond the reach of danger. Those of the 
citizens who had teams of oxen or horses, put them in requisition, 
hastily snatching but a small portion of the personal effects of 
themselves and families — in most instances, but a scanty wardrobe 
— and seeking, in terror and dismay, the most convenient avenues 
of retreat. In numerous instances, women and children, inade- 
qately provided with the means of protecting them against the 
inclemency of the season, started out on foot, to wade through the 
snow many weary miles, before they could expect to find shelter 
and rest. The British army advanced from Black Rock, or rather 
from the last point at which they had met with any considerable 
resistance, annoyed only by a few discharges from a twelve pound 
cannon, manned by a small corps that had taken position at the 



598 HISTORY OF THE 

junction of the Black Rock and the main road. When it had 
advanced to within a few rods of the old burying ground, many of 
the families of the citizens were but just leaving their dwellings, 
and others had not got far beyond the bounds of the village. At 
this critical juncture, when the Indians were leaving the main 
army, in scouts, and were about to enter the village, commence i' 
the work of plunder, and fall upon such of the inhabitants as were 
late in the retreat, with the tomahawk and scalping knife, Col. 
Cyrenius Chapin, in the absence of any one who had authority to 
treat with the invaders, and agree upon terms of capitulation, 
mounted a horse, and with a white handkerchief raised upon the 
end of his cane, approached the enemy and sought an interview 
with Gen. Riall. Terms of capitulation were hastily arranged. 
It was agreed that all public property should be given up, and 
private property respected; that the invading force should not be 
attacked while it remained in possession of the village. While this 
negotiation was going on, time was given for the lagging citizens 
to make their escape. The main body of the invaders soon 
entered the village. Among the few citizens who had remained, 
to endeavor to save their property, beside Col. Chapin, were Judge 
Walden, Messrs. Cook, Pomeroy and Kane, and Mrs. St. John 
and Lovejoy. At the suggestion of the British officers, all the 
intoxicating liquors that could be found in the village, were 
destroyed, to prevent the Indians getting access to them, and 
becoming uncontrollable. 

In this position of affairs, a building was discovered on fire. 
Judge Walden enquired of Col. Chapin, the meaning of this 
infraction of the terms of capitulation; the Colonel, surprised 
himself, requested the Judge to have an immediate interview with 
Gen. Riall. Failing to meet with him, he found Colonel ElKott, 
who had command of the Indians. He justified the commence- 
ment of burning, upon the ground that an American force was 
marching to attack them. Looking up main street, Judge Walden 
saw a small force approaching, and immediately started out to 
meet it. It proved to be a detachment of forty regular soldiers, 
who had been exempts at the hospital in Williamsville, under the 
command of Lieut. Riddle, marching in to save the village ! Judge 
Walden remonstrated against the rash and hair brained enterprise, 
and persuaded the Lieutenant to secure a retreat, but not without 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 599 

a few discharges of a cannon he had brought along with him, and 
vehement protestations against the capitulation, and the authority 
that had sanctioned it. 

The firing of buildings had now progressed to a considerable 
extent, under the direction of a Lieutenant, who moved from house 
to house, with a small corps, that applied the torch under his 
direction. A simultaneous plundering was commenced by the 
Indians. All the buildings were burned during the first day, 
except Mrs. St. John's house, Mrs. Lovejoy's, Dr. Chapin's, Judge 
Walden's and Reece's blacksmith shop. Mrs. St. John remained 
m her house, and claimed protection for herself and property, 
which was granted. Mrs. Lovejoy, less fortunate, and less 
prudent, had some altercation with the Indians, who entered her 
house for plunder, was stabbed, and her lifeless body thrown into 
the street. Judge Walden carried the body back into the house, 
where it was consumed the next day, with the house. 

About 3 o'clock P. M., the village was evacuated by the 
invaders, the main force moving down to Black Rock, and crossing 
the river with the public property they had captured, and their 
plunder. On the second day, all was quiet; there were no British 
nor Indians in the village, or rather where the village had been; 
but there were plunderers of a different character, those who 
claimed, but were unworthy of, the name of American citizens — 
marauders and land pirates — hanging around the scene of deso- 
lation, stealing and carrying ofi' the little the enemy had left; 
and this domestic rapine was continued as long as there was any- 
thing left to steal. Revolting it is, to be obliged to record the 
shameful truth in the annals of the Holland Purchase. We must 
place it to the account of war and its demoralizing tendencies. 

In the forenoon of the third day, a small party of British and 
Indians returned, burnt all the buildings that had before been 
spared, except Mrs. St. John's house and Reece's blacksmith shop; 
after which they passed down the Niagara river to Fort Niagara. 

The reader will have observed that Col. Chapin exercised an 
influence somewhat extraordinary, for one who had been conspic- 
uous in a previous invasion of Canada. This may be attributed to 
the stand he had taken at Newark, against Gen. M'Clure, and the 
rash measures there, which were so promptly retaliated. Judge 
Walden and the few other citizens that remained, probably owed 

their exemption from harm, to his influence. The Judge was at 
39 



600 HISTORY OF THE 

one time, with others that remained, formally made prisoner, but 
by walking off unobserved, and dodging from point to point, while 
the enemy were engrossed with the business of plundering and 
burning, he escaped. Col. Chapin was made a prisoner, taken to 
Montreal, and retained several months. 

The few citizens that had remained in Buffalo, went back into the 
country. Days and weeks of desertion, stillness and desolation, 
succeeded. The villages of Buifalo, Black Rock, Niagara Falls, 
Lewiston and Youngstown, and the farm houses and other tenements 
jhat intervened, presented but one extended scene of ruin and 
devastation. Mr. James Sloan, a resident of Black Rock, an active 
participator in many of the stirring scenes of the war of 1812, 
says, that a few days after the evacuation of Buffalo, himself and 
.Judge Wilkeson, passed down the lake from the Barker stand, and 
through the main street of the site of Buffalo, to the Cold Springs. 
That, between the Pratt ferry and the Cold Springs, a cat that was 
wandering about its former home, was all that they saw of any 
living thing! 

The Buffalo road was the main avenue of retreat and flight for 
the citizens, though large numbers of them went up the lake, and 
through the Seneca Indian village, Willink, (Aurora,) Sheldon and 
Warsaw. During the whole day, (the 30th,) the Buffalo road was 
crowded with squads of retreating soldiers — the retiring "bulwarks 
of their country's defence;" families upon sleighs, ox sleds, and on 
foot; in many instances half clad children, the wounded, the aged 
and infirm, were wading through snow, bands of able bodied armed 
men often passing them, pitiless and unobserving, absorbed in deep 
concern for their own individual and especial sfifety. Here and 
there, along the road, were feeble attempts to rally and stand; some 
resolute individuals would propose it, and partially succeed; but on 
would come the idle rumor that the invaders were pushing their 
conquests, and the feeble barriers would give way, as does the 
momentary deposits in flood tide, and on, on, would sweep the 
strong current of dismay, rout and flight! Idle rumors we have 
said, and so they were. Timidity, fear, marked every movement 
of the invaders, from the landing at Black Rock, to the final 
evacuation. They had no idea of extending their march. They 
were astonished themselves, in view of their easy conquests, and 
during their short stay in Buffalo, their eyes were strained to catch 
the first glimpses of a force they expected would soon be rallied to 



HOLLAND PURCHASE 601 

drive them from our soil. Alas ! for the honor of our country and 
its arms, such a force never came. ]5ven the approach of a small 
band of invalids from Williamsville, made them shake in their shoes; 
and occupation of the whole conquered frontier, was brief, stealthy, 
and full of apprehension, save at the strong fortress of Niagara, 
and within the limits where it furnished an easy refuge. There 
was but Uttle of glory, or high miUtary achievements upon either 
hand. The taking of Fort Niagara, was but a well managed sur- 
prise, a rout, almost in the absence of any resistance; all else, from 
there to Butialo, was brief, desolating occupation, and marauding; 
scarcely entitled to the dignity of a military campaign, and ordi- 
nary conquests. 

Batavia became the head quarters, the final rallying point of small 
remnants of an army; a halting place, for the fleeing, homeless and 
houseless citizens of the frontier; to the extent of the capacity of 
all the tenements in the village and neighborhood. The most valu- 
able effects of the land office were taken beyond the Genesee river; 
the house of Mr. EUicott converted into quarters for army officers, 
and his office into an hospital; private houses were thrown open, 
barns and sheds occupied; families that were separated in the hasty 
departure from Buffalo, became united there; their scattered mem- 
bers, male and female, dropping in one after the other, and giving 
by their presence the first assurance of escape from danger. All 
along the Buffalo road, as far as the Genesee river, there were 
deserted houses, which did not fail to have new occupants, soon 
after the flight from the frontiers commenced. The owners sojourn- 
ing in some hospitable neighborhood over the river, would hear 
that their deserted homes had tenants, of whom they had never 
before heard, who had entered without the formality of a lease. 

And here, in these necessarily brief and imperfect reminiscences, 
the author must not omit to name his old friend and fellow crafts- 
' man, Smith H. Salisbury. The Buffalo Gazette, published by 
himself and his brother, Hezekiah A. Salisbury, during the earliest 
years of its existence, and by himself, after May 1813, was the 
only local chronicler of events upon the immediate frontier, during 

Note. — Mrs. Mathers, who has already been named as one of the earliest residents 
of Buffalo, says that she and her daughters started from the village on foot a little before 
daylight: — "It was very dark, we could hear from Black Rock the incessant roar of 
musketr)-, and see flashes of light rising above the intervening forest. When day-light 
came, the Buffalo road presented a sad spectacle of sudden flight, miser}- and destitution. " 



602 HISTORY OF THE 

the war of 1812. Its weekly arrival in the back settlements, was 
always anxiously looked for, and seldom has a public journal been 
more useful and reliable. Frequently, did it serve to allay unne- 
cessary excitement and alarm throughout Western New York; 
and it preserved, throughout the eventful crisis, a high character 
for truth, and careful and judicious management. There was an 
hiatus in its publication, a few weeks, which embraced the invasion 
of the frontier, but when the disturbed elements began to settle 
down into comparative quiet, — as early as the 24th of January, 
after the invasion, the public were again served with the "Buffalo 
Gazette, printed at Harris' Hill, near WilHamsville — Smith H. 
Salisbury, Editor." 

Of the stirring and diversified scenes of flight and refuge, pre- 
sented upon the south route, via Willink and the old "Big Tree" 
road on the 30th of December, the author is enabled to give some 
account from personal observation and recollection. Detached 
members of many of the families of Buffalo, took that route. 
During the latter part of the 30th. and forenoon of the 31st, the 
road from Willink to Turner's Corners in Sheldon, presented one 
continuous column of retreating soldiers, men, women and children 
from Buffalo, families from the settlements in all the southern por- 
tion of what is now Erie county, and the Indians en masse, from the 
Buffalo Reservation. An ox sled would come along bearing 
wounded soldiers, whose companions had perhaps pressed the slow 
team into their service; another, with the family of a settler, a few 
household goods that had been hustled upon it, and one, two or 
three, wearied females from Buffalo, who had begged the privilege 
of a ride and the rest that it afforded; then a litter, borne upon men's 
shoulders, upon which was reclined, a wounded soldier, or an infirm 
citizen; then squads of women and children on foot; then a remnant 
of some dispersed corps of militia, hugging as booty, "as spoils of 
the vanquished," the arms they had neglected to use; then squads 
and families of Indians, on foot and on ponies, the squaw with her 
pappoos upon her back, and a bevy of juvenile Senecas in her train; 
and all this is but a stinted programm of the scene that was presen- 
ted. Bread, meats and drinks, soon vanished from the log taverns 
on the routes, and the stationary and fleeing settlers divided their 
scanty stores with the almost famished that came from the frontiers. 

It was a crisis of suffering and privation; a winter of gloom and 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 603 

despondency. Language, at this distant day, is inadequate to 
enable the reader fully to realize the then condition of the Holland 
Purchase. Throughout all the back settlements, there were the 
half deserted neighborhoods; the solitary log house, no smoke 
rising from its stick chimney; cattle, sheep, and swine, hovering 
around, and looking in vain for some one to deal out their accus- 
tomed food. Upon the immediate frontier, stretching out in a long 
continuous line, from a strong fortress, where the invaders were 
entrenched, were the blackened remains of once happy homes, 
scathed and desolated; a gloomy stillness brooding over the scene, 
so profound, that the gaunt wolf, usually stealthy and prowling, 
came out of his forest haunts at mid day, and lapped the clotted 
snow, or snatched the dismembered limb of a human corse that in 
haste and flight had been denied the right of sepulture ! 

Thus ended the disastrous campaign of 1813. To give the 
reader, in a concise form, that which will furnish a vivid and truth- 
ful description of the condition of the Holland Purchase, after the 
invasion, the author selects some cotemporary accounts. The first 
is a circular letter, the nature and objects of which are sufficiently 
explained by its contents: — 

Canandaigua, 8lh Jau. 1814. 
Gentlemen — 

Niagara county and that part of Genesee which lies west of Batavia are completely 
depopulated. All the settlements in a section of country forty miles square, and which 
contained more than twelve thousand souls, are effectually broken up. These facts you 
are undoubtedly acquainted with; but the distresses they have produced, none but an 
eye witness can thoroughly appreciate. Our roads are filled with people, many of whom 
have been reduced from a state of competency and good prospects to the last degree of 
want and sorrow. So sudden was the blow by which they have been crushed, that no 
provisions could be made either to elude or to meet it. The fugitives from Niagara county 
especially were dispersed under circumstances of so much terror that in some cases, 
mothers find themselves wandering with strange children, and children are seen accom- 
panied by such as have no other sympathies with them than those of common sufferings. 
Of the families thus separated, all the members can never again meet in this life; for 
the same violence which has made them beggars, has forever deprived them of their 
heads, and others of their branches. Afflictions of the mind so deep as have been 
allotted to these unhappy people, we cannot cure. They can probably be subdued only 
by His power who can wipe away all tears. But shall we not endeavor to assuage them ! 
To their bodily wants we can certainly administei*. The inhabitants of this village have 
made large contributions for their relief, in provisions, clothing and money. And we 
have been appointed, among other things, to solicit further relief for them, from our 
wealthy and liberal minded fellow citizens. In pursuance of this appointment, may we 
ask you, gentlemen, to interest yourselves particularly in their behalf. We believe that 
no occasion has ever occured in our country which presented stronger claims upon indi- 



604 HISTORY OF THE 

vidual benevolence, and we humbly trust that whoever is willing to answer these claims 
will always entitle himself to the precious reward of active charity. We are gentlemen, 
with great respect. 

WM. SHEPARD, 
THAD'S CHAPIN, 
MOSES ATWATER, 
N. GORHAM, 
MYRON HOLLEY, 
THOMAS REALS, 
PHINEAS P. RATES. 
Com. of safety and relief at Canandaigua. 
To the Hon. Philip S. Van Rensselaer, 
Hon. James Kent, 
Hon. Ambrose Spencer, 
Stephen Van Rensselaer, Esq. 
Elisha Jenkins, Esq. 
Rev. Timothy Clowes, 
Rev. William Neill, 
Rev. John M. Bradford. 

In answer to this stirring and timely appeal for aid, the Legisla- 
ture of the State made an immediate appropriation of fifty thousand 
dollars; the Common Council of Albany, one thousand; that of New 
York, three thousand; and liberal subscriptions were made by the 
citizens of Albany, New York, Canandaigua and in other localities; 
to which, among other donations were added, a donation of two 
thousand dollars by the Holland Company, and one of two hundred 
dollars, by Joseph Ellicott. In the forepart of March, the Commit- 
tee at Canandaigua, reported that they had received from different 
sources, over thirteen thousand dollars; making, with the Legislative 
appropriation, over sixty three thousand dollars. It was a much 
needed and timely aid, and did much to relieve the immediate 
necessities of the sufferers. 

As soon as the news of the invasion reached Washington, Presi- 
dent Madison despatched Gen. Cass to the Niagara frontier, to 
enquire into the causes of the disasters, and recommend such meas- 
ures of relief and defence as should seem necess.ary. The following 
letter was addressed by him to the Secretary of War: — 

Williamsville, January 12th, 1814. 
I passed this day the ruins of Buffalo. It exhibits a scene of distress and destruc- 
tion, such as I have never before witnessed. The events which have recently transpired 
in this quarter, have been so astonishing and unexpected, that I have been induced to 
make some inquiry into their causes and progress; and doubting whether 5-ou have 
received any correct information upon the subject, I now trouble you with the detail. 

The fall of Niagara has been owing to the most criminal negligence. The force in 
it was fully competent to its defence. The commanding officer. Captain Leonard, it is 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 605 

confidently said, was at his own house, three miles from the fort, and all the other offi- 
cers appear to have rested in as much security as though no "enemy was near them. 
Captains Rogers and Hampton, both of the 24th, had companies in the fort. Both of 
them were absent from it. Their conduct ought to be strictly investigated. I am also 
told that Major Wallace of the 5th, was in the fort. He escaped and is now at Erie. 
The circumstances attending the destruction of Buffalo, you will have learned before 
this reaches you. But the force of the enemy has been greatly magnified. From the 
most careful examination, I am satisfied that not more than six hundred and fifty men, 
of regulars, militia and Indians, landed at Black Rock. To oppose these we had from 
two thousand five hundred to three thousand militia. All except a very few of them, 
behaved in the most cowardly manner. They fled without discharging a musket. The 
enemy continued on this side of the river until Saturday. All their movements betrayed 
symptoms of apprehension. A vast quantity of property was left in the town uninjured, 
and the Ariel, which lies four miles above, is safe. Since the first inst., they have made 
no movement. They continue to possess Niagara, and will probably retain it until a 
force competent to its reduction arrives in its vicinity. 

LEWIS CASS. 

Extract of a letter from a gentleman in Niagara county, to his 
friend in Oneida county, copied from the Buffalo Gazette of Feb. 
1st. 1814: — 

'• I have visited the smoking ruins of the once pleasant, delightful and flourishing 
village of Buffalo. Black Rock, Manchester, Lewiston, and the whole frontier, which 
were, not long since, enjoyed by hundreds of families, now present a scene of desolation; 
all swept by the besom of destruction. The wretched tenants of this whole frontier have 
been driven from their homes in the severity of winter; many, in their haste to snatch 
their wives and children from the tomahawk and scalping knife, were enabled to 
preserve but little of their effects from the flames; and many, whose houses were not 
burned by the enemy, after having abandoned their dwellings, to escape the ravages of 
their foe, returning alter the alarm was over, found that their eflfects were plundered, by 
the villians who prowl about the deserted country, too cowardly to face an enemy of infe- 
rior force, and base enough to rob their neighbors of the property the enemy had spared. 

" It would make your heart ache to see the women and chikiren of the county fleeing 
from their homes and fire sides, to encounter the wintry blast, and all the miseries of a 
deprivation of all the necessaries and comforts of life. Many poor families have lost all 
— many persons in trade have been ruined — and many, whose circumstances were 
affluent, have been brought almost to beggary. I cannot, for a moment, suppose that 
the general government, will turn a deaf ear to the kgal demands of the sufferers. 
Should Congress not act promptly on this occasion an application should be made to 
our State Legislature; and in order that immediate relief should be extended to the 
sufferers, a subscription ought to be circulated in our principal cities; and from their 
liberality on occasions less operative on the public sympathy, we have every hope of 
something very efficient being done, by the exertions of individuals." 

• During the last winter, Major Douglass, an officer in the U. S. 
army, serving upon the Niagara frontier in the war of 1812, effi- 
ciently and bravely, as the records of that period testify, delivered 
a course of lectures before the Young Men's Association in Buf- 
falo, replete with interesting personal recollections, of war events. 



606 HISTORY OF THE 

The following was his graphic description of Buffalo, as he first 

saw it:- 

"On the 9th of July, at noon, we arrived at Buffalo — not the enterprising and busy- 
metropolis of Western New York, that it now is, spreading its noble avenues miles in 
length on every side, and rearing aloft its stately edifices and glittering domes — but a 
wide and desolate expanse — with only two small houses visible — a few rude sheds and 
shanties — a soiled tent here and there — and in o«e or two places, a row of marquees, 
of the better sort — apparently giving shelter to some wounded men. They were all the 
habitations, or substitutes for habitations, that the place afforded. Half a dozen isolated 
sentinels were seen on post keeping guard over as many irregular piles of loose stone 
and camp equipage; and the grounds recently occupied by the camp, thick set with rows 
of measured squares, worn smooth on the surface, and scattered here and there with 
fragments of soldiers' clothes, old bolts and accoutrements of various kinds, gave an air 
of desolation to the whole scene only rendered more striking by these details; — and in 
fact, Buffalo, just deserted by the busy groups which had a few days before occupied 
it — was desert and comfortless beyond any power of mine to describe. The two build- 
ings were, above and below, filled with wounded officers from the battle of Chippewa; 
— and here during an hour's halt, under no very pleasing auspices, commenced our 
intercourse with the realities of war." 

As promised in some remarks made at the commencement of this 
chapter, the author adds to these brief glimpses of the war of 1812, 
a passage of its history, of a far different character than the one that 
precedes it. The gallant conduct of the volunteers of the Holland 
Purchase, and all Western New York, at the Sortie of Fort Erie, 
goes far to redeem the character of our local militia, so tarnished 
and forfeited, by cowardice and flight — by the unnecessary surren- 
der of the whole frontier to a weak invasion; — as a finale to a cam- 
[)aign of failures and disasters. 

About the first of September, 1814, the militia in all the counties 
west of the GeneSeS river, were called out en masse, and ordered to 
march to Buffalo; the object of this extraordinary movement was 
well known and fully appreciated by most of the pioneers on the 
Holland Purchase. The whole body of our regular troops on the 
Niagara frontier, being about one thousand effective men, were 
closely beseiged in Fort Erie, a position of no considerable strength 
being little better than an open encampment, by an army of about 
four thousand well disciplined British troops and a body of Canadian 
militia: under this state of things, our little army could not be 
expected, long to retain their position, neither could they safely 
evacuate the fort and retreat. These considerations fired the breast 
of every patriot; if the prescribed regulations of the militia law 
were in many instances disregarded, they were in most instances 
over-leaped on the side of patriotism: the enquiry was not "am I 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 607 

subject to perform militia duty," but "how and when can I be of 
most service to my country." The land office was shut; the mer- 
chants' stores were closed; the mechanics' shops ceased to produce 
their wonted din of industry, and the husbandrpan's working cattle 
enjoyed a long sabbath; rich and poor, youth and old age, were 
impelled more forcibly by the voice of patriotism, than by the 
warning summons of the officiating sergeant: they were all wend- 
ing their way to Buffalo to assist our brave soldiers who had then 
so lately crowned themselves with glory at Chippewa and Lundy's 
Lane. 

Buffalo, at that period, exhibited nothing but the ruins of a sacked 
and burnt village. Some twelve o-r fifteen roofs only had been 
raised over those ruins, and a portion of these were erected on the 
ground, over the old cellars. After the militia had chiefly congre- 
gated, they were paraded two successive days, where now stand 
the lofty edifices of the city, and volunteers solicited to cross the 
Niagara and repair to Fort Erie. The call was generally respon- 
ded to with alacrity, although there were some who had left their 
homes under charge of officers, merely to save their fines; men 
who availed themselves of their constitutional privilege of refusing 
to cross the lines. These scrupulous heroes were not suffered to 
return to their homes, but were retained and organized into a sepa- 
rate corps, called " Buffalo Guards." 

Fort Erie, or rather the encampment called by that name, lying 
at the outlet of lake Erie into the Niagara river, on the Canada 
side, was, at that time, composed of "Old Fort Erie," consisting 
of two large stone mess-houses and one bastion, mounted with 
cannon, situated near the margin of Niagara river, and a high, 
artificial mound, transformed from Snake Hill, about one hundred 
and fifty rods southerly of the old fort. This mound was sur- 
mounted by breast-works and planted with cannon, and was called 
Towson's battery. This redoubt was connected with the old fort 
by a parapet of earth thrown up between them with a western 
angle; from this parapet traverses extended into the encampment. 
The open esplanade on the west and north of our works was but 
from sixty to eighty rods wide, where it terminated in a dense 
forest; standing on a marshy or swamp bottom between this lengthy 
parapet and the shores of the Niagara river and lake Erie, was 
the encampment of our regular soldiers. 

The British invested this encampment or fort, the latter part of 



608 HISTORY OF THE 

July. In the first place, they erected a battery at the water's 
edge on the Niagara river below the fort, to annoy the navigation 
between the fort and Buffalo, and proceeded to approach the fort 
regularly by erecting batteries in the edge of the woods farther 
and farther south, and unmasking them in the night by chopping 
out a vista towards our works.* Thus was Fort Erie circum- 
stanced when our volunteers were conveyed in boats, from Buffalo 
to Fort Erie, which was effected principally in the night, to guard 
against the British fire from their water battery. The ground 
designated for the encampment of the volunteers, about fifteen 
hundred in number, was on the lake shore, above Towson's bat- 
tery, extending some fifty rods westward to near the corner of the 
woods; on the summit of the bank thrown up by the surges of the 
lake in boisterous weather, there was a sod breast-work, hastily 
erected by the volunteers, between which and the lake shore they 
encamped on the 8th, 9th and 10th of September, and were placed 
under the immediate command of Gen. Peter B. Porter, who 
bivouaced in their midst. 

Maj. Gen. Brown, commander-in-chief of our forces on the 
Niagara frontier, having his head quarters in the regular encamp- 
ment, was well informed of the situation and proceedings of the 
British army. The main encampment of the British was on a 
farm about one and a half miles west of the fort. The British 
force was divided into three divisions or brigades, of fourteen or 
fifteen hundred men each, one of which was kept on duty at the 
batteries, four and twenty hours, every three days, and quartered 
in the main encampment the rest of the time. They had unmasked 
two swamp batteries and had nearly completed another which was 
nearer our works and was placed in a better position for raking our 
encampment than either of the others. One of the British brig- 
ades was composed chiefly of Germans, called the De Waterville 
brigade, and Gen. Brown knew that this brigade would be on duty 
at the batteries on the 17th of the month, and determined on a 
sortie from the fort on that day, as it would precede the time of 
unmasking the third battery. On the 16th, Majors Frazer and 
Riddle, volunteer aids to Gen. Porter, with a party of one hundred 
men each, half having axes and the other half carrying their arms, 
proceeded in a circuitous route through the woods to within a few 

* On the night of the 15th of August thej' attempted to carry it by storm, but being 
repulsed, they continued the siege, pushing their advances nearer the fort. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 609 

yards of their third battery, which was on the south of the others, 
from whence each party underbrushed a track back, curving and 
diverging, to escape the most miry swamps; this they effected in 
good order without even exciting the suspicion of the enemy. 

On the morning of tlie 17th, ahhough the sky was loweiy, the faces 
of the volunteers were bright and cheerful, they had learned that 
something was to be done that day to bring the siege to a close, 
many knew and most of the others suspected the manner in which 
it was intended to be effected; during the forenoon the several 
companies were paraded, the object of the intended movement 
explained, and excuses for not participating therein received. 
During this time, one of the " Batavia volunteers," (a kind of 
independent partizan corps,) while on Towson's battery, heard 
read a hand-bill announcing the victory obtained by our sailors and 
militia at Plattsburg six days before; the volunteer solicited the 
handbill of Col. Towson, to be read to the volunteers on parade, 
which was granted. The effect the reading of this handbill before 
the several companies had on the volunteers, can be easier imagined 
than described, although an almost unanimous assent had been 
cheerfully given to participate in the fortunes of the enterprise; 
headaches, colds, and lameness, which had been mentioned, were 
instantly dispensed with for the time being; a new impetus was 
given to the valor of the whole; all were anxious to march.* Each 
volunteer, officers as well as privates, was required to dispense 
with his hat or cap, and substitute a pocket handkerchief or a strip 
of red glazed cloth, of which large rolls were furnished; not a hat 
or cap was worn except by Gen. Porter. 

At noon, the whole of the volunteers were formed in two col- 
umns, each headed by a detachment of regular riflemen and dis- 
mounted dragoons as vanguards, the whole under the immediate 
command of Gen. Porter. They were marched a short distance 
up the lake shore to the two paths, traced by Majors Frazer and 
Riddle, when they merged into the dense miry forest. At the 
commencement of the march, the two columns were flanked by 
about twenty Seneca Indians and the Batavia volunteers under 

* Several years after this campaign, while General Miller and another gentleman 
were reviewing this ground, the General pointed out to the gentleman the ravine in 
which the regular troops lay awaiting the attack, and observed that the handbill above- 
mentioned was brought into the ravine and read to his men while there, to which cir- 
cumstance he attributed their spirited conducted and undaunted bravery at the time of 
the attack, which followed immediately 



610 HISTORY OF THE 

Capt. Robert Fleming. The Indians, however, finding that their 
position would become the most hazardous of any, huddled together 
and refused to proceed; on which the two columns were halted, a 
portion of the regulars were detached to carry the left wing, and 
the Batavia volunteers and Indians ordered between the two col- 
umns. About this time it began to rain, which continued the 
residue of the day. After a slow and silent march of upwards of 
two hours, having halted several times to regulate disorders occa- 
sioned by the rough and mazy paths pursued, the heads of the col- 
umns arrived, unperceived by the enemy, within pistol shot of the 
new battery, INo. 3. A musket was hardly discharged by the 
sentinel on duty, when the whole assailing party brought into 
requistion the full strength of their lungs. In giving their shouts or 
whoops, which literally " made the welkin ring," they were dis- 
tinctly heard at Buffalo and Black Rock. The German troops 
posted at this battery and blockhouse, being taken by entire 
surprise, at mid-day, at once surrendered. The volunteers pursued 
their victory to battery No. 2, and were taking possession of that 
at the point of the bayonet, when the regulars appeared in front, 
issuing from the ravine in which they had lain concealed. The 
volunteers and regular soldiers now joined, attacked and carried 
battery No. 1, although large reinforcements were constantly arriv- 
ing from the main encampment of the British army. The object of 
the sortie, being to drive away the besiegers, spike their guns, and 
blow up their magazines, being effected, a retreat was ordered, and 
the American troops returned to the fort, the rear arriving about 
sunset. 

In this battle the rules of discipline were, from necessity, entirely 
waived by the regular soldiers as well as by the militia; the surface 
of the ground was covered with mud and mire; strewed with l-ogs 
and brush, interspersed with ditches and ridges. The rain had wet 
the priming in many of the muskets, and rendered them useless as 
firearms, therefore it was in a great measure fought man to man 
and hand to hand, so much so that Gen. Porter was once made a 
prisoner, he having his hand cut with the sword of his antagonist in 
the scuffle, but was soon rescued by a small party of his own men. 

In this action, the loss suffered by the volunteers, in killed, 
wounded, and prisioners, in point of numbers, was not great, 
although they lost their local commander, Maj. Gen. Daniel Davis 
of Le Roy, Genesee county, who fell while bravely mounting a 




or WM ENDICOTT & CO NY. 



C. 0, CBEHEN. 



J^/3.7Wi^ 






HOLLAND PURCHASE. 611 

parapet between batteries Nos. 2 and 1, and urging his volunteers 
to " press forward," at which time a musket ball pierced his neck 
and caused instant death. Some twenty or thirty valuable citizens 
shared a similar fate; others were wounded, and Colonel W. L. 
Churchill and Maj. O. Wilson, together with several other patriotic 
officers and privates were taken prisoners, while bravely meeting 
and opposing the British reinforcements as they approached from 
their main encampment. On the other hand the British loss in 
killed, wounded, and prisoners, was at least one thousand men and 
as many stand of small arms. They were compelled to raise the 
siege, and four days thereafter broke up their main encampment 
and retired down the Niagara river. On which the volunteers 
were discharged and returned to their respective homes, with a 
consciousness of having *' rendered to their country some service." 



PETER B. PORTER. 



So identified with, and merged in, the events of the war of 
1812, was this early and prominent pioneer of Western New York 
and the Holland Purchase, that a portrait and brief biography of 
him, is an appropriate and fitting appendage to this portion of our 
local annals. Any history, or even historical sketch of the war 
upon this frontier, would be incomplete, if it did not embrace some 
notice of one, who so largely, bravely and honorably, participated 
in it. Locally, to borrow a dramatic illustration, he was the 
"Hamlet of the play." 

Gen. Peter B. Porter, was a younger brother of the Hon. 
Augustus Porter. He was born in Salisbury, Litchfield Co., 
Conn., in 1773; graduated at Yale College, and studied the 
profession of law in the office of Judge Reeve, at Litchfield. His 
first advent to Western New York, was in 1793. The event is 
thus noticed, in an address that he prepared * for delivery before 
the Eugiossian Society of Geneva College, in 1831: — "It is now, 
if I do not mistake, thirty-eight years since I first traversed the 
shores of the beautiful lake on whose banks we are assembled, and 
set my feet upon the ground which had been marked out as the 

* A severe domestic affliction, the illness and death of Mrs. Porter, prevented the 
attendance at Geneva and the delivery of the address. The author has been permitted 
to copy from the manuscript. 



61-2 HISTORY OF THE 

site of this rich and flourishing town. I was then a youth, with a 
mind filled, as I hope and believe yours now are, with visions of 
future enterprise and exploit and usefulness to my country, when- 
ever I should be released from the restraints of a scholastic educa- 
tion. I had heard of the far famed 'Genesee Country' — of its 
fertile soil, its genial climate, of its beautiful lakes and rivers — and 
resolved to visit it; with an intention, which was a few years after- 
wards realized, of making it the place of my future residence. 
Accordingly, accompanied by a friend, whose views and feelings 
accorded with my own, we entered the interminable forests of the 
west, at the German Flatts, on the Mohawk, which was then the 
extreme verge of civilized improvements, and plodded our weary 
way, day after day, to the Genesee river. The only evidences of 
civilization, at that time, consisted of some half a dozen log huts 
at Utica, as many more at this place, and the same again at 
Canandalgua. Beside these, there were a few miserable cabins, 
sprinkled along the road, at a distance of five to fifteen miles apart, 
where the traveler might look, not as now, for comfort or for rest, 
but for the sheer necessaries for continuing his journey." 

As intimated in the above extract, he did not then determine 
upon a location in the region, the primitive condition of which, he 
so well portrayed. In 1794, he went to Plattsburg, in this state, 
was admitted to practice, remained there but a brief period, and 
returned to Connecticut. In 1795, he accompanied his brother 
Augustus, on his return to Canandaigua, and became a resident of 
Western New York, where he was destined to have a long and 
brilliant career, at the bar, in the social and conventional relations 
of the new country; and subsequently, in the councils of the state, 
in the defence of the frontiers, and in the councils and cabinet of 
the nation. 

He was engaged as counsel, in 1795, at Canandaigua, in the first 
trial in a court of record in Western New York. He was 
appointed Clerk of Ontario county in 1797, elected a member of 
the Legislature in 1802. In 1810, he became a resident at Black 
Rock, then in Niagara county. He was twice elected to Congress; 
the first time, in 1810, and the second time, in 1814. In 1815, he 
filled the office of Secretary of State, of this state; in 1816, be was 
appointed by President Madison, one of the Commissioners to run 
the boundary line between the United States and the British 
Possessions; and in 1828 was appointed Secretary of War, by 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 613 

John Quincy Adams. These data indicate mainly, his varied and 
extended public services in military capacities. 

He v^ras an active and influential member of Congress, pending 
the war of 1812, and filled the important post of Chairman of the 
Committee of Foreign Relations. Had he consulted his own 
interests instead of the rights and honor of his country, he would 
have inclined to the peace party in Congress in that memorable crisis. 
His home, and his large property were upon the immediate frontier 
to be endangered in the event of a war with Great Britain; he 
could well have counted the cost to himself, of a war that was to 
array hostile forces upon the Niagara frontier; and well could he 
foresee the calamities it would inflict upon a large portion of his 
constituents. But, with a devotion to his country that could not 
yield to selfish or local considerations, he took a firm and decided 
stand in favor of the war. In the latter part of November, 1811, 
he reported a set of resolutions authorizing immediate and active 
preparations for war; and on the 11th of December, justified their 
propriety and necessity by a speech of great ability, firm and ener- 
getic in its tone, and yet temperate and judicious. He assumed 
that further negotiation was useless, and must be abandoned; 
recounted the wrongs that Great Britain had inflicted upon our 
country, its dogged refusal to make reparations; and announced 
that the committee of which he was chairman, only awaited the 
consummation of the measures they had recommended; and that 
then, if reparation continued to be withheld, the committee would 
recommend "open and decided war — a war as vigorous and effect- 
ive, as the resources of the country and the relative situation of 
ourselves and our enemies would enable us to prosecute." He said 
that "he was aware there were many gentlemen in t'he House who 
were dissatisfied that the committee had not gone further and 
recommended an immediate declaration of war, or the adoption of 
some measure which would instantly have precipitated us into it. 
But he confessed such was not his opinion. He had no idea 
of plunging ourselves headlong into a war with a powerful nation, 
or even a respectable province, when we had not three regiments 
of men to spare for that service. He hoped that he should not be 
influenced by the howHngs of the newspapers, nor by a fear that 
the spirit of the Twelfth Congress would be questioned, to abandon 
the plainest dictates of common sense and common discretion. He 
was sensible that there were many good men out of Congress, as 



614 HISTORY OF THE 

well as many of his best friends in it, whose appetites were prepared 
for a war feast. He was not surprised at it, for he knew the pro- 
vocation had been sufficiently great. But he hoped they would not 
insist on calling in the guests, at least, until the table had been 
spread. When this was done, he pledged himself on behalf of the 
Committee of Foreign Relations, that the gentlemen should not be 
disappointed of the entertainment for want of bidding; and he 
believed he might also pledge himself for many of the members of 
the committee, that they would not be among the last to partake 
personally, not only in the pleasures, if any there should be, but in 
all the dangers of the revelry.*' 

And well did he redeem the pledge thus given. His duties dis- 
charged at the seat of government, he participated in the "dangers 
of the revelry," often with a bravery that commanded admiration, 
and an efficiency that helped to turn the tide of war in this quarter, 
and shed lustre upon arms that had been dimmed by a series of 
defeats and untoward events. To trace his military career from 
battle field to battle field; from his first unfurling of his country's 
standard upon this frontier, and appealing in glowing language of 
patriotism and deep concern for his country's welfare, to his fellow 
citizens to range under it, would be to write a history of a large 
portion of the war upon the Niagara frontier. Locally, his name 
was a tower of strength; when confidence in other men flagged — 
when a seemingly vascillating policy governed in our national 
councils — when the weight of war pressed heavily upon all the 
region of the Holland Purchase — hope revived, reliance was 
strengthened, by his voice, his pen, and his sword. No chieftain in 
the Highlands of Scotland, with bugle blast, ever drew clansmen 
from glen or heath, that came more readily and joyously to the 
foray, than did the ardent volunteers from the back-woods and log 
cabins of the Holland Purchase, when he appealed to their patri- 
otism and invited them to his standard. With those not familiar 
with the events of that period of peril — with the local exigencies 
that existed — this may be regarded as eulogy too highly colored; 
but its fidelity and truthfulness will not fail to be recognized by 
those who remember how universal was cotemporary public senti- 
ment in Western New York, in yielding praise and warm com- 
mendation to the military services of Peter B. Porter. It is but a 
transcript of the distinct recollections of the author, of those times, 
and the men who bore a conspicuous part in them; and he only 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 615 

regrets that the circumscribed limits of this portion of his work 
forbids a recognition of the names and brilliant services of other 
of the men of the Holland Purchase, and Western New York. 

Gen. Napier, in his " Peninsular War," makes the sortie of Fort 
Erie a brilliant achievement; the only instance in history, where a 
besieging army was entirely broken up and routed by a single 
sortie. The conspicuous position that all historians of the war 
have assigned to Gen. Porter, upon that memorable occasion, 
would alone entitle him to a high rank as a military commander. 

He \Yas appointed Brigadier General of volunteers, by Governor 
Tompkins, in 1814, and brevet Major General soon after the battle 
of Lundy's Lane. In 1815, he was appointed by President 
Madison, Major General in the United States service, and was to 
have had command of the northern division of the army, had 
another campaign been necessary. Indeed, he had left Washing- 
ton, and arrived as far as Albany on his way west to prepare for 
the campaign, when the news of peace overtook him. 

The active years of his life were mostly spent in the councils of 
his country, and in the field; had his destiny been differently 
shaped — had he been left to pursue the quiet walks of his profes- 
sion, of literature, of arts and science, he would have no less 
excelled; if less conspicuous, would no less have demonstrated 
extraordinary mental endowments. His, in the progress of litera- 
ture in our country, was an early school; yet in the records of 
legislation in state and nation, there are few better specimens of 
eloquence than he uttered, or of compositions, than those that came 
from his pen. 

He was a statesman of enlarged mind, one of the most far- 
sighted and right-judging of his day. This is attested by all his 
views and services connected with the boundary commission, the 
War and Indian departments of our government, and the system of 
internal improvements of our state. 

This early pioneer of Western New York, the early lawyer, 
legislator and prominent citizen; the leader of our volunteer citizen 
soldiery, in the war of 1812; the able defender of his country's 
rights and honor in our national councils; closed a long, useful and 
honorable career, at his residence at Niagara Falls, on the 20th 
day of March, 1844, aged 72 years. His funeral was at an 
inclement season, and yet there was assembled a large concourse 
of citizens of Niagara and Erie counties. Among them, was an 
40 



616 HISTORY OF THE 

aged chief of the Tuscaroras, the stoicism of his race yielding the 
tribute of tears, that coursed down his furrowed cheek, when he 
gazed upon the remains of one who had been his friend, and the 
early and constant guardian of the welfare and interests of his 
people. Gen. Porter married late in life, Mrs. Lsetitia Grayson of 
Kentucky, the daughter of the late John Breckenridge, formerly 
Attorney General of the United States. She died at Black Rock, 
in July, 1831, aged 41 years. He left, as the inheritors of his 
good name, and a large estate, accumulated by early and judicious 
investments, a daughter and son; the latter of whom, has just 
reached his majority, and is entering upon the career of life with 
an ample fortune, and what is far better, if he justly appreciates it, 
he is endowed with a rich legacy of parental example. 

Note. — In a notice of the death of Mrs. Porter, which appeared in the columns of 
the Buffalo Journal, the author of it renders a deserved tribute to her more than ordi- 
nary mental endowments, and thus speaks of her excellent example in the domestic and 
social sphere: — " Much of her time, her labor, and her solicitude were always her free- 
will offering at the command of those who desired the assistance of her ready hand. 
The poor and the distressed had their anguish and their wants mitigated by her allevia- 
ting attentions; but all that she affected was performed so much in the simplicity of her 
heart, and such were her lofty conceptions of the awful responsibilities of the Christian, 
that she shrunk from the thought of calling them acts of religion. In the spirit of the 
reply which the blessed shall make to the Almighty Judge, she would say in reference 
to her rewards, ' when saw I thee an hungered and fed thee; or thirsty and gave thee 
drink; naked and clothed thee; sick and in prison and came unto thee?' There was 
concealed in the recesses of her soul a richer fund, both of principle and feeling, than 
its owner estimated." 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. G17 



CHAPTER II. 



THE ERIE CANAL. 



A long, uninterrupted enjoyment of individual as well as public 
blessings, their full fruition, a familiarity with their use, tends to 
make us unmindful of their magnitude. Especially is it so in the 
progressive age in which we live. Scarcely have we done won- 
dering at some new achievement, calculating its results, before 
another is projected and consummated to divert the attention. 
Now that canals and rail roads have been multiplied — steam has 
had its new and wonderful triumphs on land and water — the light- 
nings of Heaven, like the wild steed of the prairie, has been 
lassoed, tamed and fitted to the practical, familiar use of man — it 
is difficult to enable the younger portion of our readers to go back 
beyond all the important events that have been crowded into the 
last quarter of a century, and realize to its full extent, the magni- 
tude of the projection of the Erie Canal, how great was the 
triumph achieved in its construction, and how vast and diffusive 
were the local and general benefits that flowed from it. To enable 
them to judge of its local influences, the change for the better that 
followed its completion, upon the Holland Purchase, we must go 
back to the years pending its final consummation. 

Here at the western extremity of the state, upon the Holland 
Purchase especially, new settlers had for several years failed to 
create a sufficient demand for the surplus produce that began to be 
realized. The early settlers had passed through all the vicissitudes 
that have been enumerated in the progress of our narrative; the 
privations of their forest advents; the diseases of a new country, 
its chills and agues; the war and its scourges; the cold seasons 
and their attendants, frosts and stinted crops. They had subdued 



618 HISTORY OF THE 

a rugged soil, and it had given good earnests of productiveness and 
plenty; but the difficuhy of reaching a market had begun seriously 
to be felt; its consequences were a low range of prices for all they 
had to dispose of, stagnation of business, and the slow progress of 
improvement. It will be remembered that the son of a pioneer 
settler of Orleans county, relates that his father sold his wheat 
for twenty-five cents per bushel, in 1818; in 1823, it was sold in 
most of the village markets upon the Holland Purchase, as low as 
thirty-seven and a half cents. The bulk of the original debt to the 
Holland Company remained unpaid, and interest was adding to 
principal. There were no remunerating prices for anything the 
settlers had to dispose of, save, perhaps, the lumber that was in 
near proximity to lake Ontario, and the articles of black salts and 
potash; the gloomy prospect before them was the holding on to 
their decaying log tenements, after they had hoped to supply their 
places with better ones, an increasing indebtedness for their lands 
and the liability of ultimate dispossession. 

Such was the general condition of the Holland Purchase in the 
years immediately preceding the completion of the Erie canal, up 
to those points, where it began to be reached by the surplus pro- 
duce of this region. 

All that I'elates to this great work — its projection and consum- 
mation — has a direct and important bearing upon progress and 
improvement upon the Holland Purchase; and yet it is a subject 
mainly belonging to the province of the general history of our 
state. In these local annals it can only form an incidental chapter; 
a brief chronological account of events that preceded it, are allied 
to its history, its advance westward, and its final completion. 

The great " mother of invention" as well as founder of schemes 
of public utility — necessity — was the projector of the Erie canal. 
The progress of settlement in the western portion of the state; 
the absence of facilities for the transportation of the products of 
field and forest, and merchants' goods; the danger that the trade 
and commerce of a vast region bordering upon our western lakes, 
would find other avenues to a market upon the Atlantic, would be 
diverted from our own commercial emporium; were existing, stim- 
ulating exigencies. Let us briefly consider who were foremost — 
what events occurred to supply these existing exigencies — to con- 
summate what necessity so imperatively demanded. 

By a reference to page 176 of this work, it will be seen that ii^ 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 619 

a remote period of English colonization upon the Hudson, the 
Mohawk river, Wood creek, Oneida lake, and Oswego (Onondaga) 
river, furnished an internal water communication for commerce 
with the Iroquois. With the exception of occasional allusions in 
the messages of the colonial Governors to some measures for the 
improvement of the navigation of some stream, the subject of 
internal improvement does not appear to have received much atten- 
tion until after the Revolution. 

Christopher Colles, as early as 1772, delivered a course of public 
lectures in Philadelphia, on the subject of lock navigation. In 
1785, he made proposals to the Legislature of New York, for im- 
proving the navigation of the Mohawk, but the Legislature did not 
give him sufficient encouragement to enable him to carry out his 
views. He renewed his application again in 1786 with little better 
practical effect. Discouraged and embarrassed, he gave up his 
plans, and relinquished all attempts to accomplish them. In 1791, 
his scheme for " connecting the northern and southern, and eastern 
and western waters, w^as revived,'' but he is not known to have had 
any agency in it. In 1786, Jeffrey Smith, a member of the Legis- 
lature of this State, asked leave to introduce a bill for the improve- 
ment of this navigation, and '-for extending the same, if practicable, 
to lake Erie;'' a measure which must have been premature at the 
time, in view of the fact that the English had not yet surrendered 
the posts at Oswego and Niagara. 

Before the Revolution, Washington had turned his attention to 
the subject of internal improvement, but that event suspended 
the prosecution of whatever plans he might have contemplated. 
But no sooner had he fought the last great battle of freedom, and 
secured to his country the inestimable blessings of peace, than lit? 
again renewed his favorite projects. He visited New England in 
1784, and extended his journey in New York as far west as Fort 
Stanwix. In a letter addressed to the Marquis of Chastellux, a 
French nobleman, distinguished as a traveler, writer, and soldier, 
he thus enthusiastically sketches the impressions which were made 
on his mind. 

"I have lately made a tour through the lakes George and, 
Champlain, as far as Crown point; then returning to Schenectady,. 
I proceeded up the Mohawk river to Fort Schuyler, crossed over 
to Wood creek, W'hich empties into the Oneida lake, and affords 
the water communications with Ontario. I then traversed the 
country to the head of the eastern branch of the Susquehanna, and 



<m W59«ft;T ^>P fnr 






JaB»e$ 0.ittc».nK that ^- > ■ e 

» an ai^ wfeeit tbs? Kitglfelit I e 

iJbBeser. atw rapttHy mci^?aiSffls:v aaaii owjst xtefti exteostve resctcr<>?s 

iv^ tltetfi^ as: w^ te^ stret^:tfeea tfee kwsfe: ^ scctetr. a^ to 
^ft^voot .■■.tcec»r '■•^' - ^ ^ " .--i 

Wcv\iv-'- . '" . . ' . . . .^> 

- - -"dt tfee western fir«t6?r?; - n \ -^ 

Ik bis Tcoaaat of tfeeir t!i?or be 5ay?c^ — ^l Beft F?rt i^fcatawix oot. »t 

_. -. - ^? 

>pen!ei£ Avoer er oat tfee> 33»«t Bafes^ *> tfee Htufeoa."* 3fr» 

, _. _ - , eit!:; Mt^ ^ ^ .' Wlit 

VVbetj'v bv?w^vt»tx at arfter x^«rs^ he v.\u- :: te wftidi be wa:< 



well entiUofl, a hirf/i-. nharc m ihc primitive; movements having 
rcl'orencr; to the irit^;rrial eomrner<^;e of this Ht^it/;, he r/,ufjA(A that 
his views were only " t^j follow the track of Nature's canal, and to 
remove natural and artificial oh«truetion«;" but that he never 
entertained the fnoHt distant eonfy;ptiorui of a eanal from laloi Erie 
to the Hudson. We should not have consirlered it mueh more 
extrava^^'lflt to have HUgjreHted the f^jlicy of a eanal to thie mrK/n." 

To Mr. WatHon it may juntly he conceded, that if he was not 
absolutely among the first, he was one of tho«e who early enter- 
tained favorable viewH of the importance of Huch a work; but not 
only by his own ?i/imi.sHion, but by his generously attributing tfie 
conception of the overland rout^; of the Erie Canal, having its 
western termination at the foot of lake Erie, to another, he cjiunot 
be named as one of itH very earliest promulgatr;rs and frientis, 
however favorable he rnay have been to its prosecution when ite 
success Uicarne more apparent. 

It will not be our intention Uj canva^ss all the ryjnfiicting 
and " di:-;f>uted claims," to the honor of first suggesting tlie over- 
land route of the Erie Canal Whetl-ier Gouverneur Morris 
expressed the i<lf;a of "tapping lake Erie," in 1777, or not; 
whether Joshua Forrnan had conceived it practicable without 
consulting any one before he introdur^id his celebrat^^d resolutions, 
in the Assembly, in 1808, or not, there is every reaa^^n to f^mcAiuie 
that the views contained in the essays written by Jesse Ilawley, 
over the signature of Hercules, were entirely original with their 
author, who hari, even before he commenced those fx-lebrated 
canal papers, expressed the same opinions in his private c/jrre- 
spondence. Mr. Hawley was the first to present this great subject 
seriously and int/.-lligibly before the public, and urge its adoption as 
a work not only within the means of man to accomplish, but as of 
the greatest public irnp<'>rtance and utility — a work which would 
not only pay for the original cost of its constriiction, but Vx; a reli- 
able and unfailing source of future revenue. 

De Witt Clinton, to whom Is attributed a pamphl^n wnu.ca unrler 
the name of Tacitus, on the subject of the canals, speaks of Mr. 
Hawley in the following terms: — 

" The first hint on this subject, which I have seen in print wa« 
suggested by Jesse Hawley, Es/^j. of Ontario county — a gentleman 
of ail ingenious and reflecting mind. On the 27th of October, 
1807, he commenced a series of essays on interrial riavigatioo, 



622 HISTORY OF THE 

under the signature of Hercules, in the Ontario Messenger, printed 
at Canandaigua, which extended to fourteen numbers." 

Mr. Watson, whose impartiality and candor on this subject 
should not be questioned, awards to Jesse Hawley full and merited 
praise and credit for the early part he took in this great and diffi- 
cult enterprise. Mr. Watson, in his " History of the Rise and 
Progress of the Western Canals," written in 1819, speaks as 
follows of Mr. Hawley: — 

" I have not been able to trace any measure, public or private, 
tending towards this great enterprise, till the 27th of October, 
1807, when an anonymous publication, under the signature of 
Hercules, appeared in the Genesee Messengei-, which is attributed 
to Jesse Hawley, Esq. now collector of the port of Rochester. 
These invaluable essays continued through a course of fourteen 
weekly numbers, to the 2d of March, 1808. They are evidently 
original, and display deep research — views vastly extended — 
indeed, they may be pronounced prophetic in striking out, as will 
be seen by a comparison with the annexed map, nearly the track 
of the northern route of the canal, which has been since adopted, 
at least to the Seneca river. His point of commencement was 
Buffalo; thence to the outlet of the Tonnewanda creek, to be 
crossed by an aqueduct; thence easterly crossing the Genesee 
river by another aqueduct, above the Falls; thence running near 
Mud creek; thence near the outlet of the Cayuga lake; and termi- 
nating about Utica; — a distance of two hundred miles, — which he 
estimated would cost five millions of dollars. And then improving 
the bed of the Mohawk, with occasional canals to Schenectady; 
and ultimately into the Hudson river." 

The resolutions introduced by Joshua Forman in the House 
of Assembly, February 4th, 1808, are the first legislative action 
ever had on the subject. Judge Forman claims that the idea of 
a direct canal was original with him, whoever else might have 
thought of it before, and that he did not derive it either from 
Gouverneur Morris or Jesse Hawley. In a letter to David 
Hosack, which is pubhshed in his appendix to the Memoir of De 
Witt Clinton, Judge Forman says: — "I never claimed that I first 
thought of such a plan, nor is that the issue ; but I do claim to have 
been the first man who, having conceived the idea, appreciated its 
importance, set about carrying it into effect, and by the happy 
expedient of turning the eyes of the Legislature to the general 
government for its accomplishment, induced them to take the first 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 623 

Steps in a project too gigantic for them to have looked at for a 
moment as an object to be accomphshed by the means of the state.'' 

On the 21st of February, a joint resolution was offered by Mr. 
Gould of the Senate, in which the Assembly concurred, directing 
the Surveyor General to have made the survey contemplated in 
Mr. Forman's resolution, and appropriating six hundred dollars for 
that purpose. This survey was made by James Geddes, who in 
January, 1809, made a report favorable to the enterprise, as 
entirely practicable and within the means of the state. 

In 1810, Jonas Piatt, at the suggestion of Thomas Eddy, who 
was an early, active, and efficient friend of the enterprise, offered 
a joint resolution in the Senate, which was concurred in by the 
Assembly on the 12th of March, appointing Gouverneur Morris, 
Stephen Van Rensselaer, De Witt Clinton, Simeon De Witt, Wm. 
North, Thomas Eddy, and Peter B. Porter, to explore the whole 
route for inland navigation from the Hudson river to lakes Ontario 
and Erie. 

About this time, several memorials were presented to the Legis- 
lature, " representing that Canada was attracting the greatest 
portion of our internal commerce, in consequence of the facilities 
which were afforded by water communications to transport com- 
modities to her markets." De Witt Clinton, who was then a 
member of the Senate, and about this time warmly associated 
himself with this movement, strongly advocated Mr. Piatt's reso- 
lution, and became a zealous and able champion of the measure. 

The commissioners made the exploration, and submitted the 
results of their labors in the form of a report, drawn by Mr. Mor- 
ris, to the Legislature, in the winter of 1811. In the same year, a 
bill was introduced into the Senate by De Witt Clinton, then Lieut. 
Governor, providing for the appointment of two commissioners 
to solicit the aid of the General Government in constructing this 
great work. De Witt Clinton and Gouverneur Morris were 
appointed the commissioners. They went to Washington and 
presented the subject to the President, the Secretaries of the 
Departments, and prominent and influential members of Congress, 
but they failed to secure either aid or encouragement. Having 
been refused help by the General Government, in March, 1812, 
the commissioners made a report to th-e Legislature, in which they 
stated that " sound policy imperatively demanded that the canal 
should be made by the state of New York alone, as soon as cir- 



624 HISTORY OF THE 

cumstances would permit; that it would be a want of wisdom not 
to employ for public advantage those means which Providence had 
placed so completely in their power;" that it would be " a testi- 
mony to the genius, the learning, the industry, and intelligence of 
the present age." 

In June, 1812, the Legislature passed a law authorizing the com- 
missioners to borrow five millions of dollars in Europe, on the 
credit of the state of New York, for the construction of the canal. 
But the United States soon after becoming involved in war with 
Great Britain, this law, in 1814, was repealed, and nothing more 
was done in relation to the canal, until the restoration of peace. 

After peace between the United States and Great Britain had 
been restored, the subject of inland navigation was again revived 
and engaged public attention. Thomas Eddy, James Piatt, and 
De Witt Clinton, promoted the calling of a public meeting in the 
city of New York, which was large and enthusiastic, attended by 
the most prominent and influential citizens. Resolutions were 
passed in favor of the construction of the canal, and a committee, 
consisting of De Witt Clinton, Thomas Eddy, Cadwallader D. 
Golden, and John Swartout, were appointed to prepare a memorial 
to be presented to the Legislature. A memorial, written by Mr. 
CHnton, was prepared, widely circulated throughout the state, and 
produced a most decided and beneficial influence. The advantages 
and the necessity of a canal were forcibly demonstrated, and it had 
the effect to produce a strong impression upon the public mind. 
This meeting was followed by a succession of meetings on the sub- 
ject, held in different cities and villages in various parts of the State, 
all in favor of the project. Petitions were forwarded to the capital 
which were laid before the Legislature. The newspapers of the 
day were soon filled with communications, written by distinguished 
men, showing the great need there was of such a channel of com- 
munication, and the wealth and honor it would confer on the State 
and people that provided it. The public mind being thus informed, 
awakened, and prepared, it would not do for the representatives 
of the people either to oppose their wishes or refuse their requests. 
Gov. Tompkins, in his message to the Legislature in 1816, presented 
the subject for their consideration, and alluded to the propriety of 
making appropriations for that purpose. This portion of the mes- 
sage was referred, by a concurrent resolution, to a joint committee 
of both Houses. On the 21st of February, Mr. Clinton's memorial 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 625 

was presented, and soon after another memorial from the mayor, 
aldermen, and commonalty of the city of New York. On the 8th 
March the canal commissioners presented their Report, recom- 
mending the adoption of such preliminary measures as might be 
necessary for the accomplishment of this important object. On 
the 21st of March, Col. Rutzen Van Rensselear, chairman of the 
joint committee on Canals, presented his report, urging the im- 
mediate commencement of the Erie and Champlain Canals, and 
brought in a bill providing for these works. On the 5th of April, 
the house resolved itself into a committee of the whole, and took 
up the bill. The consideration of the bill was resumed from time 
to time, in committee of the whole. Animated and interesting 
debates took place. Various amendments were proposed, which 
were favored or opposed, as the friends or enemies of the Canal 
supposed they would aid or retard the enterprise. During the 
sitting, on the 13th, a proposition was made to put a local tax on 
lands lying within twenty-five miles, along the sides of the canals. 
After some other amendments and modifications, it finally passed 
the Assembly by a vote of 83 to 16. 

On the 16th, the Senate took the bill as it came from the house. 
Mr. Van Buren moved to strike out those parts which authorized 
the commencement of the work, and moved an amendment, 
directing the commissioners to make further estimates and surveys. 
This amendment was adopted. When the consideration of the bill 
was again resumed, a motion was made to reject it, but it was lost 
The number of the Canal Commissioners was reduced to five, viz., 
Stephen Van Rensselaer, De Witt Clinton, Samuel Young, Joseph 
Ellicott and Myron Holley. In this form, it passed the Senate. 

It was sent back to the Assembly, for concurrence in the 
amendments. The house refusing to concur, it went back to the 
Senate. The Senate refused to recede. It was the last day of 
the session — time and business pressed — the friends of the canal 
thought it was better to have the bill as it was, than none, and 
succeeded in inducing the House to recede and concur in the bill as 
it came from the Senate. It accordingly become a law. By this 
law, the Canal Commisioners were generally empowered to make 
surveys, estimates of expense, and to ascertain the practicability 
of making loans upon the credit of the State. 

In November, 1816, an extra session of the Legislature was held 
for the purpose of appointing Presidential electors. The Governor 



626 HISTORY OF THE 

sent a message, in which he alluded to the subject of the contem- 
plated canals, in such a manner and connection, that gave evidence 
of no very friendly feelings for them, if it did not indicate settled 
hostility to them. January 14th, 1817, the Legislature again met, 
but the Governor made no communication. On the 17th of 
February, the report of the Canal Commissioners respecting the 
Erie Canal was presented, and that on the Champlain Canal, on 
the 19th. These reports were written in the ablest manner — 
they contained a large amount of interesting and valuable informa- 
tion on every subject relating to the Canals, clearly showing "th-e 
physical facility of this great internal communication, and that a 
little attention to the resources of the s-tate, would demonstrate its 
financial practicability," The first of these reports was referi'ed 
to a joint committee of both houses. 

Without attempting to trace minutely the history of the bill, 
with all the different amendments that were offered and rejected, 
it will be sufficient to state, that on the 10th of April, 1817, it 
passed the house of Assembly, by a vote of 64 for, and 26 against it. 

On the 12th of the same month, it was taken up by the Senate. 
A long and able discussion took place. Several amendments to it 
were made by the Senate, in some of which the Assembly 
concurred, and from others the Senate receded. And, on the 15th 
day of April, 1817, it became a law. Col. Young and Myron Holley, 
were the acting commissioners on the middle section of the Canal, 
which it was determined should be first commenced. Ground was 
first broken near Rome on the 4th of July, 1817. A large concourse 
of citizens assembled with the commissioners and engineers. An 
address on behalf of the citizens was made by the Hon. Joshua 
Hathaway, at the conclusion of which he handed a spade t-o the 
commissioners. On receiving it. Col. Young replied to the speech 
and eloquently portrayed the vast magnitude of the enterprise, and 
the vast benefits that would be realized by its consummation. 
Inspired, as it would now seem, with the gift of prophesy, he said: 
"It will diffuse the benefits of internal navigation over a surface 
of vast extent, blest with a salubrious climate and luxuriant soil, 
embracing a tract of country capable of sustaining more human 
beings than were ever accommodated by any work of the kind. 
By this highway, unborn millions will easily transport their surplus 
production to the shores of the Atlantic, procure their supplies, 
and hold a useful and profitable intercourse with all the maritime 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 637 

nations of the earth. The expense and the labor of this great 
undertaking bear no proportion to its utility. Nature has kindly 
afforded every facility; — we have all the moral and physical' means 
within our reach and control. Let us then proceed to the work, 
animated by a prospect of its speedy accomplishment, and cheered 
by the anticipated benedictions of a grateful posterity." 

Col. Young then handed the spade to Judge Richardson, the first 
contractor on the work, who broke ground for the construction of 
the Erie Canal, amid the roar of cannon, and the enthusiastic cheers 
of a large assemblage of citizens. 

In 1819, the middle section of the canal was completed. On the 
23d of October in that year it was navigated from Utica to Rome. 
Parts of the eastern and western sections of the Erie canal were 
so far completed that boats passed from the east side of the Genesee 
river in Rochester, as far east as Little Falls, in 1821. The east- 
ern section was completed and boats entered the Hudson on the 8th 
day of October, 1823. The whole work was completed from the 
Hudson to lake Erie, and opened for navigation on the 20th of Oc- 
tober, 1825. 

The discussion of the relative merits of those who projected and 
were foremost in aiding the consummation of the great work is a 
hackneyed theme, and for the most part has been an unprofitable 
one. Dr. Hosack, in his memoirs of DeWitt Clinton, arranges the 
names of the projectors, or those who made suggestions, in refer- 
ence to internal improvements in this state, and those who earliest 
and most prominently participated in forwarding the construction 
of the Erie canal, chronologically, as follows: — 

C. Golden, 
G. Morris, 
G. Washington, 
C. Colles, 
J. Smith, 

The biographer and friend of Mr. Clinton, it will be observed, 
attaches no date to his identity with our works of internal improve- 
ment, but makes his the base of his pyramid of names. It has 
never been assumed that Mr. Clinton was a projector of the Erie 
canal, but it has passed into an adage, is a fact that may now be 
written down in history as conceded, and no longer to be questioned, 
that he was the Father of our canal system. Whatever others 
may have done before him in the way of suggestion, projection, or 



1724 


E, Watson, 


1791 


T. Eddy, 


1810 


1777 


P. Schuyler, 


1792 


J. Piatt, 


1810 


1787 


G. Clinton, 


1729 


S. Van Rensselaer, 


1810 


1784 


J. Hawley, 


1807 


C. D. Colden, 


1818 


1786 


J. Forman, 


1808 


DeWitt Clinton. 





628 HISTORY OF THE 

incipient movements, it was he, who, more than others, by an early 
and zealous espousal of the project of the Erie canal, at a period 
when a strong opposition was arrayed against it — in a dark and 
unpromising hour — threw the whole weight of his extraordinary 
talents and influence in favor of the measure, and by continued and 
unremitted labor in its behalf, taking the lead in winning for it pop- 
ular favor and legislative co-operation, insured its commencement 
and prosecution up to a period when the great enterprize began to 
take care of itself. Such is the feeble but truthful tribute of history 
to the memoi-y of a great Public Benefactor; a more enduring 
tribute will soon evince the gratitude of a state he so much aided in 
its rapid and unparalleled advances to the high position it now 
occupies. 

We, of Western New York, have some reason to complain of 
omissions in Mr. Hosack's list. Cotemporary with the names he 
enumerates, as belonging to the canal period of 1810, he should 
have included the names of Peter B. Porter and Joseph Ellicott. 
The former was one of the primitive board of Canal Commissioners, 
and in Congress, an able and zealous advocate for a system of inter- 
nal improvements by the general government, which would have 
included aid to this state, in prosecuting its works. The latter was 
the early correspondent of Mr. Clinton, in reference to the canal, 
gave efficient aid to the project, by his sound practical judgement, 
and intimate topographical knowledge of the country, and was a 
member of the board of Canal Commissioners, as early as 1816. 

And in these, the local annals of the Holland Purchase, and 
incidentally, of Western New York, the claims of Jesse Hawley 
may well be re-asserted, and insisted upon, as the plain and undeni- 
able deduction from cotemporary history. He was the projector 
of the Erie canal. By this the author would be understood to 
mean that the essays he wrote and published in the Ontario Mes- 
senger, in 1807 and '8, contained the first proposition that contem- 
plated such a work of internal improvement as the Erie canal now 
is; that all the projects that preceded his, had reference to works 
of another character, contemplated improvements of existing inter- 
nal navigation of the state, and the use of lake Ontario, as a west- 
ern extension; works far inferior in magnitude to the one he 
projected; such as would have come far short of accomplishing the 
mighty results we have witnessed; especially, in reference to its 
influences upon the prosperity of the western portion of the state. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 629 

The story may be made a brief one — the main points are conce- 
ded in citations that have already been made. 

Jesse Hawley was a native of Newfield, (now Bridgeport,) 
Conn.; was born in 1773. He was engaged in the mercantile 
business at Geneva, Ontario county, as early as 1805, in which 
business he was unfortunate. He spent the winter of 1806 and '7 
in Pittsburgh. He published his first essay on the subject of the 
Erie canal, in the Pittsburgh "Commonwealth" of Jan. 14, 1807. 
He returned to Ontario county in the same year, and during the 
summer, re-published his first essay in the Ontario Messenger, and 
followed it up with a series of essays which were continued at 
intervals, up to March, 1808. These essays contain the first 
suggestions, ever made for connecting the Hudson river with lake 
Erie, by a continuous overland water communication. They were 
written with much ability, and no one can read them now, without 
a feeling of surprise, excited by their boldness of design, at a period 
so primitive in reference to internal improvements; their vast fore- 
sight, in anticipating so much that has become reality. On a slip 
of paper, in the author's possession, is the following reminiscence, 
in the handwriting of this prominent public benefactor: — "I first 
conceived the idea of the over land route of the canal, from Buffalo 
to Utica, in Col. Wilhelmus Mynderse's office, at Seneca Falls, in 
1805." In his mercantile operations at Geneva, during that year, 
he purchased wheat which he had floured at Col. Mynderse's mill, 
and shipped to Schenectady and Albany. Upon the occasion 
alluded to, he was engaged in superintending the shipping of flour, 
and while in the office of Col. Mynderse, the subject of a better 
navigation came up. Mr. Hawley, stepping to a map of the state, 
drew his finger over the country from Utica to lake Erie, and 
said: — "There is the head of water." This may be regarded as 
the first intimation having reference to such a work as the Erie 
canal. 

The efforts of Mr. Hawley in behalf of internal improvements, 
did not end with his early essays. He continued up to the period of 
his death to devote a large portion of his time in that behalf. He 
aided the project of canal enlargement, materially in its early stages; 
and subsequently, when that measure was threatened with suspen- 
sion, or reduction, he brought before the Legislature a mass of 
useful statistical information, facts and figures, well calculated to aid 
in a right understanding of the subject. In this as in other instances, 



630 HISTORY OF THE 

it was his fate to see another profit by his suggestions and indefati- 
gable labors. The Senator, to whom he entrusted his manuscripts, 
incorporated them in a report of which he claimed the paternity, 
using the thunder as if he was the Jove that made it. 

That his public services, his early and continual devotion to the 
cause of internal improvements, have never been sufficiently appre- 
ciated, will be generally conceded. That he entertained a deep 
sense of this neglect,, and that it weighed heavily upon a sensitive 
mind — is well known to those who enjoyed his intimacy; and is it 
to be wondered at, that one who had so eminently contributed to 
public prosperity, should have manifested a laudable ambition to 
receive at the hands of that public some suitable recognilion of the 
debt of gratitude, that was due to him? 

Mr. Hawley was a resident of Lockport, Niagara county, at the 
period of his death — Jan. 1842. He was spending an evening at 
the house of a friend in the adjoining town of Cambria, when he 
was suddenly attacked with hemorrhage of the lungs, and expired 
in a few minutes. 

The remains of one so conspicuously identified with the history 
of the Erie canal, occupy a spot of elevated ground in the rural 
Cold Spring cemetery, near Lockport, overlooking the great work 
he projected. Now that justice has been done to the memory of 
DeWitt Clinton, by provisions for a suitable monument, next to his 
services, are there any that better deserve a similar public acknow- 
ledgment, than those of Jesse Hawley '? 

Resuming the brief sketch of the progress of the canal westward, 
we can only allude to the prominent events. In 1816 the route of 
the canal west of Genesee river had not been determined. In that 
year, Mr. EUicott employed Mr. Peacock to explore a route from 
Buffalo to the site of the present village of Pendleton, and thence 
eastwardly, south of the Mountain Ridge, to the Genesee river. 
The summit of this route, proved to be 75 feet above lake Erie, 
which of course prevented its adoption. At the same time, James 
Geddes surveyed a route from Pendleton northwardly to the Moun- 
tain Ridge; and thence eastwardly to the Genesee river. This 
route was afterwards, in the main, adopted, the principal variation 
being at Lockport. The attention of the commissioners being 
engrossed with the middle section, nothing farther was done west 
of the Genesee river, until near the close of 1819, and then no more 
than the adoption of Mr. Geddes' northern route. In 1820, David 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 631 

Thomas was appointed principal engineer west of the Genesee river. 
In that year he carefully examined Geddes' line from Rochester to 
Pendleton, and made examinations of the Tonawanda creek. He 
varied the line from Pendleton to Lockport, from the survey of Mr. 
Geddes' whicji had proposed descending the Mountain Ridge, in the 
gorge, a mile and a quarter west of the present locks; a variation 
which has been fully approved by time, and upon the score of 
practical utility; and another important and judicious variation east 
of the Oak Orchard creek. David Thomas' survey and report was 
adopted in the spring of 1821, and the rock sections at Lockport, 
immediately put under contract. During the summer, the principal 
engineer, revised the line from Rochester westward, and extended 
it up the Niagara river to Buffalo. The whole was put under con- 
tract before the close of 1821, and prosecuted with a vigor that 
public anxiety and expectation demanded, as the great work 
approached nearer and nearer to a consummation. 

A detached history of the western section of the canal, would 
involve a long and bitter controversy, touching its termination at 
the foot of lake Erie — a rivalship between Buffalo and Black Rock, 
if indeed, even then it could not well be dispensed with. Ere the 
record of that controversy, which should be made now had lost its 
freshness, progress, the vastly increasing commercial operations 
at the foot of lake Erie, will have so far outstripped the sectional 
views of the men of that period, that even the land marks of their 
controversy will be obliterated. 

Never in any age or country, has a public work, of any kind, 
been carried on by agents more faithful and persevering, than were 
the men who had charge of the construction of the Erie Canal from 
the Genesee river, to lake Erie; and this local designation is not made 
for the sake of any invidous comparison with other portions of the 
srreat work. The earliest commissioner identified with construction, 
' was Myron Holley; so eminently able and faithful were his services 
that the recollection and acknowledgment of them, outlive and pal- 
liate the mixed offence of fault and misfortune, with which they 
were destined to close. His successor was William C. Bouck. 
Who, at the west, who had cognizance of those times and their local 
events, does not remember how faithful and indefatigable, he was 
in the discharge of his duties? Or, almost imagine that they can see 
him now as they saw him in those primitive canal times, traversing 

the forest on horseback and on foot, from the log shanties of one 
41 



632 HISTORY OF THE 

contractor to those of another; sleeping and eating where emergency 
made it necessary, in quarters no matter how rude or humble; or 
in his room at the old ''Cottage" in Lockport, coolly and good 
naturedly resisting the fierce importunities of the dissatisfied con- 
tractor; yielding to exigencies here and there, when public interest 
demanded it, or strenuous and unyielding when it did not; pressing 
on the difficult work upon the Mountain Ridge, amid great difficul- 
ties and embarrassments; persevering to the end, until he had seen 
the last barrier removed that prevented the flow of the waters of 
lake Erie through their long artificial channel. 

There was the early principal engineer, David Thomas; in the 
public service, in all his extended conventional and social relations 
— amiable, unassuming; when wronged, not reviling; the pattern 
of a man; endowed with intellectual powers, and high scientific 
attainments, that well entitles him to a high rank among the men 
of New York. His sudden removal from a sphere of great useful- 
ness, in which no blemish or wrong doing was shown, with another 
memorable instance, must always be passed over by the historian, 
with the conclusion that the times, and not the men, were at fault. 
He yet survives, with faculties unimpaired, to make voluntary, 
liberal offerings, to the common stock of scientific knowledge. The 
other early engineers employed west of the river, as principals, 
were David S. Bates, and Nathan S. Roberts, to both of whom, 
the work was largely indebted for successful management. Of the 
resident and assistant early engineeers, there were, Davis Hurd, 

Charles T. Whippo, Price, Alfred Barrett, Porteus Root, 

and John Hopkins; all of whom, in the discharge of their duties, 
abundantly justified the early expressed opinion of Mr. Ellicott, that 
the genius and enterprize of the young men of our country would 
obviate the necessity of going to Europe for engineers. 

A jubilee, such as has never, upon any other occasion, been 
witnessed in our country, awaited the completion of the Erie Canal. 
All else consummated, a signal from the Mountain Ridge was anx- 
iously looked for, to commence the work of preparation for the 
great event. It was given as follows: — 

"To the Hon. Stephen Van Rensselaer, President qf the Board of Canal Commissioners: 
Sir — The unfinished parts of the Erie Canal will be completed and in a condition 

to admit the passage of boats, on Wednesday, the 26th day of October next. 

It would have been gratifying to have accomplished this result as early as the first of 

September, but embarrassments which I could not control, have delayed it. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 633 

On this grand event, so auspicious to the character and wealth of the citizens of the 
state of New York, permit me to congratulate you. 

WM. C, BOUCK, Canal Com. 
Lockport, Sept. 29, 1825." 

On the promulgation of this gratifying intelligence, active prepa- 
rations commenced. Committees of conference on the part of New 
York and Albany, taking the lead, a general plan of celebi'ation 
was agreed upon, which was concurred in by a conference of com- 
mittees of Rochestei', Lockport and Buffalo. 

In all the space that intervened from the announcement of Com- 
missioner Bouck, up to the appointed day, the celebration was the 
engrosing topic of conversation, preparation for it the paramount 
business. There was the active correspondence of committees and 
sub-commi-ttees, processions and dinners projected, speeches and 
toasts prepared; artillery and other military companies were brush- 
ing up their ordnance and arms; fire companies, mechanics' and 
other associations, in cities and villages, preparing their appropriate 
banners; bands of music, were practicing enlivening strains; man- 
agers of dancing assemblies were issuing their cards of invitation. 
In short the "busy note of preparation" was sounding from lake 
Erie to Sandy Hook. All were looking forward to a gala-day — a 
period of joy and hilarity — the celebration upon a scale of grandeur 
and magnificence, of the peaceful triumphs of state energy, enter- 
prise and perseverance. 

An important feature in the general arrangements for the cele- 
bration, was the stationing of cannon of a large calibre, (generally 
32s,) from Buffalo to Sandy Hook, to announce the departure of 
the first boat from lake Erie to tide water, and answer the purposes 
of a continuous salute. 

As the appointed day drew near the forces of the contractors 
upon the Mountain Ridge were largely increased, and every means 
put in requisition to be in readiness. On the evening of the 24tli of 
October, the work was completed, the guard gates were raised, and 
the filling of the lake Erie level commenced. On the evening of 
the 25th, the entire canal from Buffalo to Albany was in a navigable 
condition. 

Buffalo, then a village of only twenty-five hundred inhabitants, but 
making up in public spirit and enthusiasm any now seeming want 
of numbers, from its position at the head of navigation, was of course 
to lead off" in the ceremonies. And well did the germ of a now 



634 HISTORY OF THE 

great city, acquit itself.* The New York Committee that arrived 
there on the evening of the 25th, in their after report, say that they 
"found every thing in readiness for the commencement of the 
celebration." 

At 9 o'clock on the morning of the 26th, a procession was formed 
in front of the Court House. It consisted of the Governor and 
Lieutenant Governor of the state, the New York delegation, dele- 
gations from villages along the whole line of the canal, various 
societies of mechanics with appropriate banners, and citizens gener- 
ally; the whole escorted by the Buffalo band, and Capt. Rathbun's 
Rifle Company. The procession moved down Main Street to the 
head of the canal, where the pioneer boat, the "Seneca Chief," was 
in waiting. The Governor and Lieut. Governor, and the Commit- 
tees, including that of Buffalo, were received on board. The whole 
standing upon the deck, there were mutual introductions and con- 
gratulations. Jesse Hawley, Esq. in behalf of the Rochester 
Committee, made a short address, which was replied to by Judge 
Forward. 

All things being in readiness, the signal gun was fired, and con- 
tinuing along from gun to gun, in rapid succession, in one hour and 
twenty minutes the citzens of New York were apprized that a boat 
was departing from the foot of lake Erie, and was on its way, 
" traversing a new path to the Atlantic ocean." 

The Seneca Chief, led off in fine style, drawn by four grey horses 
fancifully caparisoned. Three boats, the Perry, Superior, and 
Buffalo, followed. The fleet moved from the dock under a salute 
from the Rifle Company, accompanied by music from the band. 
The procession marched to the Court House, where an address was 
delivered by Sheldon Smith, Esq. after which an original ode 
written for the occasion, was sung to the tune of "Hail Columbia." 
A public dinner succeeded, and the festivities of the day were closed 
by a splendid ball at the Eagle Tavern. 

At Lockport, a salute of thirteen guns was fired at sunrise. 
At nine o'clock a procession was formed in front of the Washington 
House, under the direction of Gen. Parkhurst Whitney, as marshal 
of the day, assisted by Col. Samuel Barton and Maj. M. H. Tucker. 
The procession moveid to the foot of the locks, when the President 

*It is questionable whether the same thing co«ld be better done now. A vast 
increase of numbers, would hardly supply the spirit and joyous feeling that then 
existed. Surfeited with prosperity, communities as well as individuals, became stolid 
aud indifferent. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 635 

and Vice President of the day, the Canal Commissioners and 
Engineers, the Committee of Arrangements, Visiting Committees 
and many citizens of distinction from abroad, embarked on board 
the packet boat William C. Bouck, that had been selected as the 
first to pass the locks. Over two hundred ladies were escorted 
upon the boat Albany, of the Pilot Line. The remainder of the 
procession embarked on other boats lying in the basin. Immediately 
after the grand salute had passed from Buffalo east, the lock gates 
were opened, and the fleet commenced ascending to the lake Erie 
level. As it ascended the stupendous flights of locks, its decks 
covered with a joyous multitude, it was greeted with the constant 
and rapid discharge of heavy artillery, thousands of rock blasts or 
explosions prepared for the occasion, and the shouts of spectators, 
that swarmed upon the canal and lock bridges, and upon the 
precipices around the locks and basin. As soon as the two for- 
ward boats had passed out of the upper locks, they were drawn up 
side by side, and after a prayer by the Rev. Mr. Winchell, an 
address was delivered by Judge Birdsall. Stepping upon an elevated 
platform upon the deck of one of the boats, in the stillness that had 
succeeded the earthquake sounds, and the shouts of human voices, 
he exclaimed : " The last barrier is passed! We have now risen 
to the level of lake Erie, and have before us a perfect navigation 
open to its waters." The address was one of marked ability, 
replete with stirring eloquence and the spirit of the occasion. At 
the close of the address, under a discharge of artillery, the explo- 
sions of rocks, the fleet of boats started for the west. At Pen- 
dleton it halted, and the fleet of boats from the west, that had been 
joined by a boat from Black Rock with a local committee on board, 
soon came up. The boats that had passed the locks acting as an 
escort, the combined fleet passed down to Lockport, where it was 
received under a discharge of artillery. A supper was served up 
at the Washington House, after which the pioneer fleet from Buf- 
falo and Black Rock continued upon its voyage to the ocean. 

Night setting in, no farther prominent demonstrations marked 
the progress of the fleet until it arrived the next morning at Holley. 
At that village and at Brockport, its arrival was welcomed by the 
firing of cannon and other joyous demonstrations. The spirited 
citizens of the then just rising village of Newport (Albion) deter- 
mined not to forego a participation in the jubilee. They had 
a celebration on the 26th; a procession, an address by G. W. 



636 HISTORY OF THE 

Fleming, Esq. firing of cannon, a dinner and toasts; prolonging 
the ceremonies of the day even to the " small hours of the night," 
not to let the procession of boats pass in the absence of such 
demonstrations as the darkness allowed. 

At Rochester, the demonstrations were upon a scale, and of a 
character, corresponding with the local position and the immense 
advantages that its citizens anticipated, from the completion of the 
great enterprize. The Seneca Chief, with the boats in her train, 
arriving there about 2 o'clock P. M. on the 27th, were received 
with eight uniform companies under arms, and an immense con- 
course of people. Upon the wharf under an arch, were the 
Rochester and Canandaigua Committees. Short congratulatory 
addresses were made by Jesse Hawley and John C. Spencer, Esqs. 
which were replied to by Gov. Clinton. A procession moved to 
the Presbyterian church, where a prayer was offei'ed by the Rev. 
Mr. Penny, and an address delivered by Timothy Childs, Esq. 
A dinner followed at the Mansion House, Gen. Matthews presiding 
assisted by Johnathan Childs and Jesse Hawley, Esqs. and in the 
evening there was a ball and a general illumination. At 7 o'clock 
in the evening the fleet took its departure for the east, the "Young 
Lion of the West," having on board a Rochester Committee, being 
added to the flotilla. From Rochester to Albany, during its transit 
there was at all the canal villages, a succession of celebi-ations. 
It was in the language of one who witnessed the demonstrations, 
''a protracted 4th of July celebration." The fleet arrived at Albany 
on the 2d of November, at 1 o'clock P. M. The celebration there 
was upon a scale of magnificence never upon any other occasion 
attempted at our state capital. But it was reserved for the Empire 
City of the Empire State, to add the grand finale, to terminate the 
great Jubilee, by putting in requisition her immense facilities upon 
land and water. It was said by a gentleman present, who had 
witnessed the naval fete given by the Prince Regent of England, 
upon the Thames, during the visit of the allied sovereigns to 
London after the dethronement of Napoleon, that the spectacle upon 
the waters of New York, far transcended that in the metropolis of 
England. The crowning ceremonial, was the sailing of an immense 
fleet down the bay to Sandy Hook, when from the deck of a vessel 
Gov. Clinton poured a keg of water that had been carried down 
from lake Erie on the Seneca Chief, into the Ocean, accompanying 
the act with suitable explanatory remarks. The vessel upon which 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 637 

this ceremony was performed, was surrounded by a fleet three miles 
in circumference. Upon the return of the Seneca Chief to Buflalo, 
there was brought on board of her a keg of the water of the ocean 
which was poured into lake Erie by Judge Wilkeson, chairman of 
the Buffalo Committee, who made a short address, which included 
a brief account of the splendid pageantries the Buffalo Committee 
had witnessed in their tour. Thus ended the protracted Jubilee ! 
A long successions of demonstrations, of public rejoicings, such as 
in the aggregate have never attended any other peaceful triumph 
of the wisdom, foresight and energy of any people, in any age. 

There are readers of the present day, who, perhaps, will be 
likely to look back upon the events we have narrated, and deem 
the demonstrations extravagant; unable, as they will be, to form a 
just estimate of all that stimulated and promoted them. They 
will, at least, not fail to acknowledge, how more than realized, 
have been the seemingly extravagant anticipations of that period. 
The half was not seen, even in those days of anticipations and 
rejoicings. Even then, had some bold anticipator of coming 
events, more confident than the mass, ventured to predict the 
results that have flowed from the construction of the Erie Canal, 
he would have been called a dreaming enthusiast! Who, then, 
would have ventured to foretell what is now reality? Who would 
have been bold enough in his imaginings, to have pointed forward 
to the end of twenty-three years; to the great cities that have 
been doubled in population; to the new ones it has created; to the 
large and prosperous villages that are dotted along its banks; to 
the new Empire it has helped to create around the borders of our 
western Lakes, and the fleets of steam and sail vessels it has put 
afloat upon their waters '? 



638 HISTORY OF THE 



CHAPTER III. 



COMMERCE OF THE UPPER LAKES. 



The vast internal commerce upon the chain of Upper Lakes, has 
a distinct identity with our local region, and a brief sketch of its 
progress, will be looked for, as a part of our pioneer annals. The 
foot of lake Erie is its eastern termination. The "mouth of 
Buffalo creek," as Mr. Ellicott used to designate the locaHty, in 
dating his earliest letters from the Holland Purchase; the "New 
Amsterdam," as he was disposed to call it, after he had determined 
to make it the site of a village, and platted it for that purpose — 
has become the mart of the commerce of states, of a vast and 
fertile region. Buffalo creek, that sluggishly flowed into lake 
Erie, a sand bar at its mouth, over which, even the bateaux of 
the early French traders, had to be dragged, is now crowded with 
a long line of shipping; at times, having the appearance of some of 
our chief harbors upon the Atlantic. Upon its bank, a long, 
continuous wharf, and capacious store houses, filled with the 
produce of the west, and merchandize from the east, meeting here 
in their transit of exchange. Where, at one period, and that within 
the memory of living witnesses, the sum total of other than native 
residents, was Black Joe, William Johnstone, Benjamin Middaugh, 
Winne, and Ezekiel Lane; and even these, assimilated in habits 
and inclinations, to the wild sons of the forest, by whom they were 
surrounded, and whose tenants they were; now are the principal 
operations of a commerce, equal to the export trade of the whole 
Union with foreign nations. Where stood the primitive log cabin, 
which afforded the only resting place for the surveyors, after their 
long pilgrimages in the wilderness, are now magnificent hotels, 
brick blocks, piled up four and five stories high, to economize in 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 639 

the matter of room; the value of the ground having gone up from 
five dollars per acre, to three, and even four hundred dollars per 
foot. The grounds betvv^een, below the '' beautiful elevated bank," 
"extending to the lake, and up Buffalo creek," which Mr. Ellicott 
congratulated Mr. Cazenove upon having kept out of the Indian 
Reservation, inasmuch, as with "little trouble it could be converted 
into beautiful meadows," is now traversed by the Erie Canal, and 
its arm or extension, the Hamburgh Canal; in almost the centre of 
it, the state is now constructing an immense artificial basin, or 
harbor, to accommodate the vastly increasing commerce of the 
Canal; and throughout its greatest extent, is a compact, built-up 
portion of the embryo "New Amsterdam," now appropriately 
called the "city of the lakes." 

Even in an age, a country, and a local region of Progress, all 
this is wonderful; a prominent, marked feature. It is almost 
wholly, the joint offspring of lake and canal commerce. 

An account of the pioneer advent of La Salle, in the navigation 
of the lakes, has been given. It marked a new era with the 
French missionaries and traders. Up to that period, their route 
from the St. Lawrence, to their stations at the west, had been 
through Canada, to lake Huron. Other vessels must have soon 
supplied the place of the wrecked Griffin, for the new lake route 
of La Salle, became the avenue for reaching the forts, missionary 
and trading stations, that were soon multiplied, and embraced the 
straits of Detroit and St. Clair, the northern shore of lake 
Michigan, and the vallies of the Maumee and Wabash. Many 
years previous to the English conquest, the French commerce, it 
seems, required the construction of a railway up the mountain at 
Lewiston, a portage road, and a landing place at Schlosser. Two 
vessels were probably quite sufficient for the trade, however, and 
that number — the two fired and sunk at Burnt Ship Bay, in the 
Niagara river — is all we hear of, at the termination of French 
dominion. 

The history of English commerce upon the lakes, previous to 
the surrendering of these posts in 1796, is a brief one. It was 
carried on with one or two vessels, and consisted only of the 
transportation of men and supplies, to the western posts and 
trading stations, and furs and peltries, on their way to Montreal. 
It had undergone but little progress in all the long periods of 
French and English occupancy. Mr. Fairbanks, who resided at 



640 HISTORY "OF THE 

Chippewa, in 1795, says that an armed brig, a few gun boats, and 
one merchant vessel, was all the English had on the lakes at that 
period.* 

There w'ere a long series of years, following after the close of 
English dominion, that the commerce of the lakes had little, if any 
progress. For a long period after the settlement of this region 
commenced, there was only added to the carrying trade that has 
already been named, the downward freight of a small, yearly 
supply of white fish, and fruit from the orchards on the Detroit 
river. The completion of the Erie Canal had not the immediate 
effect to materially increase lake commerce. It awaited the new 
impetus, the commencement of rapid emigration to the western 
states and territories. " The breaking out of the Black Hawk war, 
in 1832, first brought out a knowledge of the richness of the soil, 
and salubrity of the climate of northern Illinois and Indiana, and 
the territory of Wisconsin, and exhibited the commanding position 
of Chicago, for commercial business. This war being closed that 
same season, and peace being re-established in all those parts, a 
strong current of emigration set in that direction, the next year, 
and the rich prairies of that country began to fill with a vigorous, 
hardy and enterprising population; and from that time, only the 
short space of eight years, may it in truth be said, that there has 
been any commerce west of Detroit.'' f 

The first steam vessel on the upper lakes was the " Walk-in-the- 
water," built at Black Rock, and launched in August, 1818. In 1819, 
she made a trip to Mackinaw, to carry up goods for the American 
Fur Company. This boat was wrecked on the beach near Buffalo, 
in 1821. In 1822, her place was supplied by the steam boat 
Superior. 

The building of this second steam boat not only marks a period 
in the history of lake commerce generally, but, connected with it, 

* The following reminiscence of English lake commerce, is taken from a number of 
the "New York Gazette and Weekly Post Boy," of February, 1770: — "By letters 
from Detroit, we are informed that several boats with goods, have been seventy days in 
crossing lake Erie; the distress of the people was very great; they were obliged to keep 
two human bodies, found unburied upon the shore, in order to collect and kill the 
ravens and eagles that came to feed on them, for their preservation. Many other boats 
are frozen up, within forty miles of Detroit. A great many trader's small boats have 
been lost." 

t Letter of James L. Barton, Esq. to Capt. W. G. Williams, of the topographical 
engineer department, dated December, 1841. To that letter, and other productions of 
this able and indefatigable, early and persevering friend and historian of lake com- 
merce, the author is farther indebted for materials for his brief sketch. 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 641 

were some pioneer movements in the construction of Buffalo har- 
bor. Previous to 1820, no lake craft larger than a canoe or French 
batteau, had entered the mouth of Buffalo creek. The stinted 
commerce of the Lakes had no harbor at the foot of lake Erie, 
except Black Rock; vessels discharging freight destined for Buffalo, 
or taking freight from there, either did it at Black Rock, or, laying 
off the mouth of Buffalo creek, received and discharged freight by 
means of small boats. In 1818, the legislature authorized the 
survey of Buffalo creek, at the expense of the county of Niagara. 
This survey was made by William Peacock, gratuitously. In 
1819, the legislature authorized a loan of $12,000 for the construc- 
tion of a harbor. It was secured by bond and mortgage upon 
real estate, executed by Oliver Forward, Charles Townsend, 
Samuel Wilkeson, and George Coit. Under the superintendence 
of Judge Wilkeson, the money was expended, and a pier extended 
into the lake about eighty rods, reaching twelve feet water. In 
1821, obstructions were so far removed as to admit small vessels 
into Buffalo creek. When an agent came on from New York, to 
build the steam boat Superior, however, in January, 1822, he did 
not regard the harbor improvements sufficiently advanced to insure 
the passage of the boat out of the creek, if constructed upon its 
banks, and at first determined upon building at Black Rock. To 
divert him from this purpose, a few prominent citizens of Buffalo, 
— Charles Townsend, Samuel Wilkeson, George Coit, Ebenezer 
Johnson, E. D. Efner, and Ebenezer Walden, executed a bond, 
agreeing to pay the steam boat company one hundred and fifty 
dollars for every day the boat should be detained in Buffalo creek, 
after the first of May. This mduced the agent to build the 
boat at Buffalok During the season of 1822, the harbor improve- 
ments were prosecuted with great vigilance, and before the setting 
in of winter, enough had been accomphshed, as was supposed, to 
ensure against the penalty of the bond. The spring freshet, unfor- 
tunately, filled up the channel, reducing the depth of water for a 
considerable distance, to three feet and a half. The completion 
of the steam boat, and the first of May, were events near at hand. 
With extraordinary public spirit, the citizens of Buffalo raised a 
subscription, the able-bodied among them, without distinction of 
occupation or profession, becoming laborers upon the work, cleared 
out the recent deposit, the Superior passed out as soon as she was 



G42 HISTORY OF THE 

ready for the lake, and the bond was thus canceled. This is the 
brief pioneer history of the Buffalo harbor; to which may be 
added the mention of the first appropriation made to the work by 
the general government. This was in 1826 — the sum $15,000 — 
procured through the influence of the Hon. Daniel G. Garnsey, 
then Representative in Congress, from Niagara and Chautauque.* 

The waters of lake Michigan were first visited by a steam vessel 
in 1827, a boat having that year made an excursion with a pleasure 
party to Green Bay. The first steamboats that reached Chicago, 
were those employed by the Government to transport troops and 
supplies for the Black Hawk war. 

The commerce of the Lakes, originating in tlie pioneer advent of 
La Salle in 1668, may be said to have had almost a sameness — a 
few vessels answering all the purposes of -a small carrying trade, 
connected with the western military and trading stations — until the 
commencement of the navigation of the Erie Canal, in the season 
of 1826; with the exception perhaps of a small increase that had 
kept pace with settlemeiit in the lake region of Ohio and in a small 
portion of Michigan. "This embraces a period of one hundred and 
forty-eight years. The commerce that embraces the entire chain 
of the upper lakes, as connected with the ordinary business of life, 
settlement and improvement, has in fact existed but a little over 
twenty years. Its progress is one among the wonders of the age. 
To make a full exhibit of its rapid increase, would require the 
insertion of a series of statistical tables, and a larger space than the 
author has now at his disposal. The reader, however, can well 
estimate the immense magnitude of the commerce of the upper 
lakes, from the following aggregates, selected from the commercial 
statistics of the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser for 1847: — 

In that year there were in commission upon the lakes, ninety- 
eight steamers, thirty-five propellers, four barques, eighty-two 
brigs, four hundred and ninety-five schooners, twenty-three sloops 
and scows; total tonnage, 131,460 tons. Selecting only the prom- 

* This early and prominent Pioneer of tiie Holland Purchase was named in connec- 
tion with early events in Chautauque. His life has been one of enterprise and public 
usefulness. He was the projector of the scheme of lighting the lighthouse at Barce- 
lona with natural geis, the only successful instance of the kind in the world. He has 
been one of the founders of two or three now flourishing towns at the West; and yet 
survives, zealous and ardent in whatever concerns the progress of his race and age; 
one of the few specimens left of the excellent materials of which the early Pioneers of 
the Holland Purchase were composed. 




.1T« or WM ENOICOTT iL CO N 



C, CREHEN 



^-^/k^^^^^^^^sL.^ 



!^SiIWIlIl4 WEILIEU^ 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 



643 



inent articles of produce arriving at Buffalo in that year, they were 
as follows: — 



Flour, bbls 1,857,000 

Pork •* 42,000 

Beef " 38,900 

Staves, ps 8,800,000 

Wheat, bu 6,489,100 

Corn, " 2,862,000 



Oats,bu 446,000 

Butter, kgs 101,584 

Lard, lbs 3,436,000 

Cheese, bxs 30,840 

" casks 6,450 

Lumber, M. ft 17,313 



There were exported from Black Rock and Buffalo, by canal, in 
1847, 710,943 tons, principally the products of field and forest, of 
the regions bordering upon the western lakes. The total value of 
imports of Buffalo from the lakes, in 1846, was ascertained and 
estimated to amount to nearly $20,000,000. In the same year, 
there arrived at Buffalo, via the Erie Canal, the great bulk of which 
was shipped to the west, 153,761 tons of mei'chandise and other 
property, valued at #23,199,665. The monied value of the business 
of Buffalo and Black Rock, done on the Erie Canal, and which 
came from and went on to the lakes, was $40,000,000. The 
amount of capital invested in all descriptions of vessels upon the 
upper lakes in 1846, was not far from $6,000,000. The number of 
men employed in lake commerce, about 6,000. The number of 
passengers arriving and departing from Buffalo, in 1846, was not 
far from 250,000. 



SAMUEL WILKESON. 



The excellent portrait of Judge Wilkeson, which the artist has 
furnished for this work, accompanied by a brief biographical sketch, 
has been appropriately reserved as an appendage to a branch of 
our narrative, with which, it has been seen, he was closely identified. 
When the period arrives in which the gratitude of those who are 
enjoying in so eminent a degree the fruits of the labors, the indom- 
itable enterprise and perseverance, of the early pioneers and fathers 
of the City of the Lakes, shall assume the active form of some 
enduring testimonial, conspicuous upon the tablet they erect, will be 
the name of Samuel Wilkeson. 

Judge Wilkeson was born at Carlisle, Pa. in 1781. To say that 
he was cradled and nurtured amid the hardships of pioneer border 
life, would not be merely a figure of speech. When but an infant, 
his father's family was one of twenty families that penetrated the 
forests of Western PennsvlVania, 'and encountered not onlv the 



644 HISTORY OF THE 

usual privations of the wilderness, but the long series of Indian 
border wars that ensued. 

He became a resident upon the Holland Purchase in 1807, at 
Portland, Chautauque county, where he engaged in the salt trade; 
transporting his salt over a portage to Chautauque lake, and down 
the Allegany and Ohio rivers. This early enterprise probably 
ended in loss, as the opening of the Kanawa salt works occurred 
while he had upon his hands salt that had cost him $16 per barrel. 
He continued at Portland until towards the close of the war of 
1812, when he became a citizen of Buffalo, commencing trade in 
a small way upon the present site of the Kremlin Block on Main 
street. 

Becoming thus identified by residence and interest, with the 
locality, he was, for thirty-four years, during the progress of village 
and city, an active and prominent helper in all that concerned their 
welfare. In long seasons of severe controversy, during the rival- 
ship of localities, he was prominently a champion of Buffalo and 
its interests. There were ''giants in the land," even in those 
early days; with some of whom it was his province to contend; 
and with what success, many of that day will well remember. 
The triumphs in which he bore a conspicuous part, are prominent 
features in the history of a prosperous city, whose early cause he 
espoused with all the ardent zeal and native strength of mind 
which formed the distinguished characteristics of the man. The 
prominent early Pioneers of the Holland Purchase were, with few 
exceptions, all self-made men; it has been a region where strong 
men have wrestled with adversity from early life, been the found- 
ers of their own fortunes from humble beginnings, and signally 
triumphed. Distinguished even among such men, his early cotem- 
poraries, was the subject of this sketch. 

The various offices he filled during a long and active life, were 
those of Justice of the Peace, Member of Assembly, Judge, Sen- 
ator, and Mayor of the city of his residence. Retiring, in a great 
measure, from an active political life, with an ample fortune, he 
engaged early in the great scheme of benevolence embraced in the 
organization of the American Colonization Society. That, and the 
interests of a religion and a church he had zealously espoused at a 
late period in life, engrossed a large share of his time and his mind, 
during his latter years. 

This early Pioneer of the Holland Purchase, conspicuous among 



HOLLAND PURCHASE. 645 

the founders of the prosperous city that marks its rapid progress — 
the uneducated boy from the back-woods of Pennsylvania, that 
hved to identify his name, not only with the history of this entire 
local region, but with the legislation of the state, and a scheme 
of benevolence which deeply concerned the interests of his country, 
and an unfortunate race — died in Kingston, Tennesee, in July, 1848, 
while on his way to visit a daughter who resided in that state. 
He left a large estate, and a richer legacy, in the following extract 
of a letter, the last that he wrote to his sons: — "I may never sec 
you again; whether I do or not, be kind to each other, be liberal 
and generous — forgiving all injuries, whether real or imaginary." 



APPENDIX. 



DEDUCTION OF TITLE FROM ROBERT MORRIS TO THE HOLLAND COMPANY. 



Having, in the body of this work, traced the title of the Holland Purchase from 
James H, William and Mary, and Charles H, Sovereigns of England, to Robert 
Morris, we here append a succinct deduction of title from Robert Morris to the last 
proprietors, who held the property under the appellation of the Holland Company. In 
the first place, however, we will trace the title of three portions of the tract, containing, 
by estimation, three millions, three hundred thousand acres, from Robert Morris to 
Wilhem Willink, Nicholas Van Staphorst, Pieter Van Eeghen, Hendrick Vollenhoven, 
and Rutger Schemmelpenninck; in whom the title to those three portions was vested 
on the 31st day of December, 1798, and the title to the remaining portion, estimated at 
three hundred thousand acres, to the last Dutch proprietors. These estimated quanti- 
ties, it will be understood, are mere assumptions, predicated on no known data, except 
the million and a half acre tract described in the first mentioned deed. 

1st. Deed from Robert Morris and Mary, his wife, to Herman Le Roy and John 
Linklaen, by deed dated December 24, 1792, conveying one and a half millions acres, 
in two tracts, as described in said deed; the west tract as described, containing one 
million acres, and the east tract, containing half a million acres. The two collectively, 
forming one tract, comprising four hundred and twenty-two chains, and fifty-six links, 
off the western parts of each of the townships in the seventh range, and the whole 
of the townships in the eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, 
and fifteenth ranges of townships. — Sec Secretary of State's Office, Albany, Lib. M. R. 
No. 24,fol. 510, and Clerk's Office, Ontario, Lib. \,fol. 327. 

Deed from Herman Le Roy and John Linklaen to William Bayard, conveying the 
same land, dated May 30th, 1795. — See Secretary nf State's Office, Albany, Lib. M. 
R. No. 'S3,fol. 514, and Chrk's Office, Ontario, Lib. 6,fol. 38. 

Deed from William Bayard and wife to Herman Le Roy, John Linklaen and Gerrit 
Boon, dated June 1st, 1795. — See Secretary of Stale's Office, Albany, Lib. M. R. No. 
33, fol. 518, and Clerk's Office, Ontario, Lib. 6,fol. 36. 

Deed from Herman Le Roy and Hannah, his wife; John Linklaen and Helen, his 
wife; and Gerrit Boon to Paul Busti, dated July 9th, 1798. — See Secretary of State's 
Office, Albany, Lib. M. R. No. 31, fol. 212, and Clerk's Office, Ontario, Lib. 5, fol. 300, 

Deed from Paul Busti and wife to Herman Le Roy, William Bayard, James Mc 
Evers, John Linklaen, and Gerrit Boon, (in trust for the benefit of Wilhem Willink 
and others, citizens of the United Netherlands, and with covenant to convey the same 
according to their directions and appointment,) dated July 10th, 1798. — See Secretary 



APPENDIX. 647 

of State's Office, Albany. Lib. M. R. No. 32, fol. 115, and Clerk's Office, Ontario, Lib. 
5,/ol. 315. 

Deed from Herman Le Roy, William Bayard, James McEvers, John Linklaen, and 
Gerrit Boon to Wilheni Willink, Nicholas Van Staphorst, Pieter Van Eeghen, Hendrick 
VoUenhoven, and Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck, dated December 81st, 1798. — See 
Secretary of State's Office, Albany, Lib. M. R. No. 32, fol. 40, and Clerk's Office, 
Ontario, Lib. 6, fol. 33. 

The title to the last named grantees was confirmed to them by Thomas L. Ogden 
and Gouverneur Morris, by deed, dated February 18th, 1801. — See Secretary of State's 
Office, Albany, Lib. M. R. No. 34, fol. 246, and Clerk's Office, Ontario, Lib 8, fol. 340. 

2d. Deed from Robert Morris and wife to Herman Le Roy, John Linklaen and 
Gerrit Boon, conveying one million acres, comprising townships Nos. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16, in the first range of townships; townships Nos. 4, 5, 6, 7, 
8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16, in the second and third ranges; and townships Nos. 
1, 2, 3 and 4, in the fourth, fifth and sixth ranges of townships, dated February 27th, 
1793.— -Sec Secretary of State's Office, Albany, Lib. M. R. No. 25, fol. 38, and Clerk's 
Office, Ontai-io, Lib. I, fol. 324. 

The preceding conveyance confirmed by deed between the same parties, dated June 
1st, 1798.— -Sec Secretary of State's Office, Albaay, Lib. M. R. No. 31, fol. 149, and 
Clerk's Office, Ontario, Lib. 5, fol. 294. 

Deed from Herman Le Roy and Hannah, his wife, John Linklaen and Helen, his 
wife, and Gerrit Boon, to Paul Busti, dated July 9th, 1798. — See Secretary of State's 
Office, Albany, Lib. M. R. No. 31, fol. 218, and Clerk's Office, Ontario, Lib. 5,foL 305. 

Deed from Paul Busti and wife to Herman Le Roy, William Bayard, James Mc 
Evers, John Linklaen and Gerrit Boon, in trust for the benefit of Wilhem Willink and 
others, with covenant to convey the same according to their directions and appointment, 
dated July 10th, 11 dS.— Secretary of State's Office, Albany, Lib. M. R. No. 31, fol. 
.358, a7id Clerk's Offiice, Ontario, Lib. 5, fol. 307. 

Deed from Herman Le Roy, William Bayard, James McEvers, John Linklaen and 
Gerrit Boon to Wilhem Willink, Nicholaas Van Staphorst, Pieter Van Eeghen, 
Hendrick VoUenhoven, and Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck, dated December 31st, 
1798.— See Secretary of State's Office, Albany, Lib. M. R. No. 31, fol. 247, and Clerk's 
Office, Ontario, Lib. 6, fol. 27. 

The title to the last mentioned grantees was confirmed to them by Thomas L. 
Ogden, by deed dated February 13th, 1801. — See Secreiary of State's Office, Albany, 
Lib. M. R. No. 33, fol. 241, and Clerk's Office, Ontario, Lib. 8, fol. 412. 



3d. Deed from Robert Morris and wife to Herman Le Roy, John Linklaen and 
Gerrit Boon, conveying eight hundred thousand acres, consisting of townships Nos. 5, 
6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16, in the fourth, fifth and sixth ranges of town- 
ships, dated July 20th, 1793.— -S'ee Secretary of State's Office, Albany, Lib. M. R. No. 
25, fol. 147, and Clerk's Office, Ontario, Lib. 2, fol. 158. 

The last mentioned conveyance was confirmed by deed between the same parties, 
dated June Lst, 1798. — See Secretary of State's Office, Albany, Lib. M. R. No. 31, 
fol. 153, and Clerk's Office, Ontario, Lib. 5, fol. 288. 

Deed from Herman Le Roy and Hannah his wife, John Linklaen and Helen his 
wife, and Gerrit Boon, to Paul Busti, dated July 9th, 1798. — See Secretary of State's 
Office, Albany, Lib. M. R. No. 31, fol. 205, and Clerk's Office, Ontario, Lib. 5. 
fol. 303. 

42 



648 APPENDIX. 

Deed from Paul Busti and wife to Herman Le Roy, Wm. Bayard, James McEvers, 
John Linklaen, and Gerrit Boon, in trust, for the benefit of Wilhem Willink and 
others, with covenant to convey according to their directions and appointment, dated 
July 10th, 1798.— See Secretary of State's Office, Albany, Lib. M. R. No. 32, fol. 127, 
and Clerk's Office, Ontario, Lib. 5. fol. 311. 

Deed from Herman Le Roy, WilHam Bayard, James McEvers, John Linklaen, and 
Gerrit Boon, to Wilhem Willink, Nicholaas Van Staphorst, Pieter Van Eeghen, Hen- 
drich Vollenhoven and Rutger Jan Schimmelpennink, as joint tenants, dated Dec. 31, 
1798.— -S'ee Secretary of State's Office, Albany, Lib. M. R. No. 31, fol. 243, and 
Clerk's Office, Ontario, Lib. 6, fol. 29. 

The title to the last mentioned grantees was confirmed to them by Thomas L. Ogden, 
by deed, dated Feb. 13th, 1801.— See Secretary of State's Office, Albany, Lib. M. R. 
No. 34, fol. 251, and Clerk's Office, Ontario, Lib. 8, fol. 408. 



4th. Deed from Robert Morris and wife to Herman Le Roy, William Bayard, and 
Matthew Clarkson, conveying three hundred thousand acres, consisting of townships 
N"os. 1, 2, 3 and 4, in the first range of townships, and townships Nos. 1, 2, and 3, in 
the second and third ranges of townships, and also one hundred and thirteen chains 
and sixty eight links off the east part of all the townships in the seventh range, dated 
July 20th, 1793.— See Secretary of State's Office, Albany, Lib. M. R. No. 25, fol. 131, 
and Clerk's Office, Ontario, Lib. 6, fol. 58. 

The title of the last named grantees was confirmed to them by deed between the 
same parties, dated June 1st, 1798. — See Secretary of State's Office, Albaiiy, Lib. M. R. 
No. 31, fol. 144, and Clerk's Office, Ontario, Lib. 5, fol. 284. 

Deed from Herman Le Roy and Hannah his wife, William Bayard and Elizabeth 
his wife, and Matthew Clarkson, to Paul Busti, dated July 9th, 1798. — See Secretary of 
State's Office, Albany, Lib. M. R. No. 31, fol. 207, and Clerk's Office, Ontario, Lib. 5, 
fol. 297. 

Deed from Paul Busti and wife to Herman Le Roy, William Bayard, and Matthew 
Clarkson, in trust for Wilhem Willink and Jan Willink, with covenant to convey 
according to their directions and appointment, dated July 10th, 1798. — See Secretary 
of States Office, Albany, Lib. M. R. No. 32, fol. 122, and Clerk's Office. Ontario, Lib. 
5, fol. 320. 

Deed from Herman Le Roy, William Bayard, and Matthew Clarkson, to Wilhem 
Willink, Jan Willink, Wilhem Willink, Jr. and Jan Willink, Jr. as joint tenants, dated 
January 31st, 1799. — See Secretary of State's Office, Albany, Lib. M. R. No. 31, fol. 
257, and Clerk's Office, Ontario, Lib. G,fol. 31. 

The title of the last mentioned grantees was confirmed to them by Thomas L. Ogden, 
by deed, dated Feb. 27th, 1801.— See Secretary of State's Office, Albany, Lib. M. R. 
No. 33, fol. 277, and Clerk's Office, Ontario, Lib. 8, fol. 420. 

The several re-leases by Thomas L. Ogden were for the purpose of re-instating the 
title from tlie effects of sheriff's sales, made by virtue of judgments against Robert 
Morris. 

The individuals forming the Holland Company being aliens, were not authorised to 
hold and convey real estate within this state, therefore they held these lands, in the first 
place, by trustees. Fearing that some flaw might be found in the regularity of their 
title, according to the common law of Great Britain, which decided such matters ia 
the absence of statutory provisions; two statutes were passed by the Legislature of the 
State of New York, for their especial benefit, as well as two other statutes relative to 
aliens holding lands generally. By these four statutes, the titles of which follow, the 



APPENDIX. 649 

conveyances herein before named, and those which follow, are fully authorised and 
indisputable titles, preserved in the last grantees. 

'• An act for the relief of Wilhem Willink, Nicholaas Van Staphorst, Christiaau Van 
Eeghen, Hendrick Vollenhoven, Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck, and Pieter Stadnitski, 
being aliens; passed 11th April, 1796." 

"An act supplementaiy to the act entitled, *an act for the relief of Wilhem Willink, 
Nicholaas Van Staphorst, Christiaan Van Eeghen, Hendrick Vollenhoven, Rutger Jan 
Schimmelpenninck, and Pieter Stadnitski, being aliens,' passed 24th February 1797." 

"An act to enable aliens to purchase and hold real estate, within this state, under 
certain restrictions therein mentioned, passed 2d April, 1798." 

"An act declaratory of the construction and intent of the act entitled ' an act to ena- 
ble aliens to purchase and hold real estate within this state under certain restrictions 
therein mentioned,' and to amend the same, passed 5th March, 1819." 

Statement deducing the title of the land included in the three first mentioned chains 
of title, from Wilhem Willink, Nicholaas Van Staphorst, Pieter Van Eeghen, Hendrick 
Vollenhoven, and Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck, in whom the title to the whole of 
the Holland Purchase was vested, on the 31st day of December, 1798, except the three 
hundred thousand acres owned by Wilhem Willink, Jan Willink and others. 

Deed from Wilhem Willink, Nicholaas Van Staphorst, Pieter Van Eeghen, Hendrick 
Vollenhoven, and Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck, by their attorney, Paul Busti, to 
James McEvers, dated March 24th, 1801, convoying nine hundred eighty-three thou- 
sand, nine hundred and ninety-seven acres, consisting of seven thousand, two hun- 
dred and eighty-six acres of the west part of township fourteen, and the whole of 
townships Nos. 15 and 16, in the fourth range of townships; the west four hundred 
twenty-two chains and fifty-six links of townships Nos. 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 
15, in the seventh range of townships; the whole of townships Nos. 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 
13, 14 and 15, in the eighth range; townships Nos. 8, 13, 14 and 15, in the ninth 
range; townships Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, in the eleventh and twelfth ranges; town- 
ships Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, in the thirteenth range; townships Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4, in 
the fourteenth range; and townships Nos. 1, 2 and 3, in the fifteenth range of town- 
ships. — See Secretary of State's Office, Albany, Lib. M. R. No. 33, fol. 210, and 
Clerk's Office, Ontario, Lib. 8, fol. 370. 

Deed from James McEvers to Wilhem Willink, Nicholaas Van Staphorst, Pieter 
Van Eeghen, Hendrick Vollenhoven, Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck, Wilhem Willink 
the )'ounger, Jan Willink the younger, Jan Gabriel Van Staphorst, Roehf Van Stap- 
horst the younger, Cornells Vollenhoven, and Hendrick Seye, as joint tenants, dated 
April 1st, 1801.— .^ee Secretary of State's Office, Albany, Lib. M. R. No. 34, fol. 226, 
and Clerk's Office, Ontario, Lib. 8, fol. 330. 

Deed from Wilhem Willink, Wilhem Willink, Junior, and Cornehs Vollenhoven, 
(survivors of the above joint tenants,) to Egbert Jean Koch, dated February 9th, 1829. 
— See Secretary qf State's Office, Albany, Lib. A%fol. 51; Niagara County Clerk's 
Office, Lib. 4, fol. 401; Chautauque County Clerk's Offi.ce, Lib. 8, fol. 20; Cattai-augus 
County Clerk's Office, Lib. 2, fol. 292; Erie County Clerk's Office, Lib. 12, fol. 113; 
Orleans County Clerk's Office, Lib. 2, fol. 364. 

Deed from Egbert Jean Koch to Wilhem Willink, Walrave Van Heukelom, Jan 
Eeghen, Cornells Isaac Van Der Vliet, Wilhem Willink, Junior, and Pieter Van 
Eeghen, as joint tenants, dated February 10th, 1829. — See Secretary of State's Office, 
Albany, Lib. 42, fol. 56; Niagara County Clerk's Office, Lib. 4, fol. 405; Chautauque 
County Clerk's Office, Lib. 8, fol. 23; Cattaraugus County Clerk's Office, Lib, 2, fol. 
295; Erie County Clerk's Office, Lib. 12, fol. 113; Orleans County Clerk's Office, Lib. 
2, fol. 264. 



650 APPENDIX. 

Deed from Wilhem Willink, Walrave Van Heukelom, Jan Van Eeghen, Cornelis 
Isaac Van Der Vliet, Wilhem Willink, Junior, and Pieter Van Eeghen, together with 
Nicholaas Van Beeftingh and Gerrit Sehimmelpenninck, (son of Rutger Jan,) to 
Egbert Jean Koch, dated February 11th, 1829, conveying township No. 14, in the 
fourth range of townships, containing 13,950 acres. — See Secretary of Slate's Office, 
Albany, Lib. 42,fol. 61; Orleans County Clerk's Office, Lib. %fol. 369. 

Deed from Egbert Jean Koch to Wilhem Willink, Walrave Van Heukelom, Jan 
Van Eeghen, Cornelis Isaac Van Der Vliet, Wilhem Willink, Junior, and Pieter Van 
Eeghen, as joint tenants, dated February 12th, 1829, conveying seven thousand, two 
hundred and eighty-six acres of the west part of township No. 14, in the fourth range 
of townships. — .S'ee Secretary of State's Office, Albany, Lib. 42, fol. 64, and Orleans 
County Clerk's Office, Lib. 2, fol. 373. 



Deed from Wilhem Willink, Hendrick Vollenhoven, Rutger Jan Sehimmelpenninck, 
survivors of Nicholaas Van Staphorst and Pieter Van Eeghen, to Hendrick Seye, 
dated April 18th, 1821; conveying townships Nos. 5, to 16, in the first range of town- 
ships, both inclusive; townships 4, to 16, in the second and third ranges, all inclusive; 
townships Nos. 1, to 13, in the fourth range, both inclusive; townships Nos. 1, to 16, 
iu the fifth and sixth ranges, all inclusive; the west four hundred twenty-two chains 
and fifty-six links of townships Nos. 1, to 5, in the seventh range, both inclusive; town- 
ships Nos. 1, to 5, in the eighth range, both inclusive; and townships Nos. 1, to 6, in 
the ninth and tenth ranges, all inclusive; containing, by estimation, two millions acres. 
— See Secretary of State's Office, Albany, Lib. 40, fol. 400; Genesee County Clerk's 
Office, Lib. 15, fol. 492; Niagara County Clerk's Office, Lib. I, fol. 110; Erie County 
Clerk's Office, Lib. G,fol. 519; Cattaraugus County Clerk's Office, Lib. 1, fol. 128; 
Allegany County Clerk's Office, Lib. C.fol. 19(5; Chautauque County Clerk's Office. 
Lib. A, fol. 62. 

Deed from Hendrick Seye to Wilhem Willink, Hendrick Vollenhoven, Rutger Ja» 
Sehimmelpenninck, Walrave Van Heukelom, Nicholaas Van Beeftingh, Jan Van 
Eeghen, Wilhem Willink, Junior, and Gerrit Sehimmelpenninck, (son of Rutger Jan) 
as joint tenants, dated April 19th, 1821; conveying the same premises as the last. — See 
Secretary of State's Office, Albany, Lib. 40, fol. 403; Genesee County Clerk's Office, 
Lib. 15, fol. 490; Niagara County Clerk's Office, Lib. I, fol. 114; Erie County Clerk's 
Office, Lib. G,fol. 522; Cattaraugus County Clerk's Office, Lib. l,fol. 131; Allegany 
County Clerk's Office, Lib. C.fol. 192; Chautauque County Clerk's Office, Lib. 4, fol. 65. 

Deed from Wilhem Willink, Walrave Van Heukelom, Nicholaas Van Beeftingh, 
Jan Van Eeghen, Wilhem Willink, Junior, Gerrit Sehimmelpenninck, (survivors of 
Hendrick Vollenhoven and Rutger Jan Sehimmelpenninck,) together with Cornelis 
Isaac Van Der Vliet and Pieter Van Eeghen, to Egbert Jean Koch, dated February 
11th, 1829; conveying township No. 14, in the fourth range of townships, containing 
thirteen thousand, nine hundred and fifty acres. — See Secretary of State's Office, 
Albany, Lib. A%fol. 61; Orleans County Clerk's Office, Lib. 2, fol. 369. 

Deed from Egbert Jean Koch to Wilhem Willink, Walrave Van Heukelom, Nicho- 
laas Van Beeftingh, Jan Van Eeghen, Wilhem WilUnk, Junior, and Gerrit Sehim- 
melpenninck; dated February 12th, 1829, conveying six thousand, six hundred and 
seventy-four acres of the east part of township No. .14, in the fourth range of townships. 
— See Secretary of State's Office, Albany, Lib. 4%fol. 66; Orleans County Clerk's 
Office, Lib. 2, fol. 375, 



APPENDIX. 



651 



THE TOWNSHIPS OF THE HOLLAND PURCHASE, WITH REFERENCE 
TO TOWNS AS NOW ORGANIZED. 



ALLEGANY. 

T. 1, R. 1, Bolivar. 

T. 2, R. 1, Wirt. 

T. 3, R. 1, Friendship. E. pt. 

T. 4, R. 1, Belfast. W. pt. 

T. 5, R. I. Caneadea. 

T. 6, R. 1, Hume. 

T. 1, R. 2, Genesee. 



T. 7, 
T. 8, 
T. 9, 
T. 10, 
T. 7, 
T. 8, 
T. 9, 
T. 10, 



WYOMING. 
R. 1, Pike. 
R. 1, Gainesville. 
R. 1, Warsaw. 
R. 1, Middleburj-. 
R. 2, Eagle. 
R. 2, Weathersfield. 
R. 2, Orangeville. 
R. 2, Attica. 



T. 2, R. 2, Clarkesville. 

T. 3, R. 2, Cuba. 
. T. 4, R. 2, Belfast, 
.T. 4, R. 2, New Hudson. 

T. 5, R. 2, Rushford. 

T. 6, R. 2, Centreville. 



T. 7, R. 3, China. 

T. 8, R. 3, Java. 

T. 9, R. 3, Sheldon. 

T. 10, R. 3, Bennington. 

T. 7. R. 4, China. 

T. 8, R. 4, Java. 

T. 9, R. 4, Sheldon. 

T. 10, R. 4, Bennington. 



GENESEE. 



E. pt. . 
W. pt. 



E. pt. 



T. 11, R. 1, Bethany. 
.T. 12, R. 1, Stafford. 
.T. 12, R. 1, Batavia. 

T. 13, R. 1, Elba. 

T. 11, R. 2, Alexander. 

T. 12, R. 2, Batavia. 
.T. 13, R. 2, Elba. 



W. pt. 



S. pt.. 
N. pt. 



W. tier lots. 
S. E. pt.... 
N. E. pt.... 



T. 14. 
.T. 15, 
.T. 15, 
T. 16, 
T. 14, 
.T. 1.5, 
.T. 1.5, 
.T. 15. 



R. 1, 
R. 1, 
R. 1, 
R. 1, 
R. 2, 
R. 2, 
R. 2, 
R. 2, 



ORLEANS. 
Barre. 
Barre. 

Gaines. 

Carlton. 

Barre. 

Ridgeway. 

Barre. 

Gaines. 



.T. 13, R. 2, Oaldield. 
T. 11, R. 3, Darien. 
T. 12, R. 3, Pembroke. 
T. 13, R. 3, Alabama. 
T. 11, R 4, Darien. 
T. 12, R. 4, Pembroke. 
T. 13, R. 4, Alabama. 



T. 16, R. 2, Carlton. 
T. 14, R. 3, Shelby. 
T. 15, R. 3, Ridgeway. 
T. 16, R. 3, Yates. 
T. 14, R. 4, Shelby. 
T. 15, R. 4, Ridgeway. 
T. 16, R. 4, Yates. 



CATTARAUGUS. 



T. 1, R. 3, Portville. 

S. pt T. 2, R. 3, Portville. 

N. pt T. 2, R. 3, Hinsdale. 

S. pt T. 3, R. 3, Hinsdale, 

N. pt T. 3, R. 3, Rice. 

T. 4, R. 3, Lyndon. 

T. 5, R. 3, Farmersville. 

T. 6, R. 3, Freedom. 

T. 1, R. 4, Olean. 

S. pt T. 2, R. 4, Olean. 

N. pt T. 2, R. 4, Hinsdale. 

S. pt T. 3, R. 4, Hinsdale. 

N. pt T. 3, R. 4, Rice. 

E. pt T. 4, R. 4, Lyndon. 



W. pt. 



.T. 4, 



S. W. cor. lot, 
Residue 



S. tier lots. . 

Part 

S. E. pt. . . 



S. pt. 



T. 5, 
.T. 6, 
.T. 6, 
.T. 7, 

T. 1, 
. T. 2 



R. 4, 
R. 4, 
R. 4, 
R. 4, 
R. 5, 
R. 5, 
R. 5, 
R. 5, 



R. 5, 
R. 5, 
R. 6, 
R. 6, 



Franklinville. 

Farmersville. 

Machias. 

Freedom. 

Burton. 

Burton. 

Humphre)-. 

Franklinville. 

Machias. 

Machias. 

Yorkshire. 

Yorkshire. 

Carrol ton. 

Carrolton. 



652 



APPENDIX. 



N pt. 



CATTARAUGUS, Continued. 



S. pt 
N. pt. 
S. pt. 



S. pt. . . 
Part. . . . 



.T. 2, R. 

T. 3, R. 

T. 4, R. 
.T. 5, R. 
.T. 5, R. 
.T. 6, R. 

T. 1, R. 

T. 2, R. 

T. 3, R. 

T. 4, R. 

T. 5, R. 
.T. 6, R. 
.T. 6, R. 

T. 1, R, 



Great Valley. 

Great Valley. 

Ellicottville. 

Ellicottville. 

Ashford. 

Ashford. 

Little Valley. 

Little Valley. 

Little Valley. 

Mansfield. 

Otto. 

Otto. 

Ashford. 

South Valley. 



E. pt. . . . 
W. pt... 
S. E. pt. 
S. W. pt. 



T. 

T. 

T. 
.T. 
,.T. 
.T. 
.T. 

T. 

T. 

T. 

T. 

T. 

T. 



2, R. 8, Cold Spring. 

3, R. 8, Napoli. 

4, R. 8, New Albion. 

5, R. 8, Otto. 

5, R. 8, Persia. 

6, R. 8, Otto. -^ 
6, R. 8, Persia. - 

1, R. 9, South Valley. 

2, R. 9, Randolph. 

3, R. 9, Connewango. 

4, R. 9, Leon. 

5, R. 9, Dayton. 

6, R. 9, Perrysburg. 



ERIE. 



N.W.pt T. 6, R. 5, 

N. & W. pts...T. 7, R. 5, 
T. 8, R. 5, 
T. 9, R. 5, 
T. 11, R. 5, 
T. 12, R. 5, 

S. pt T. 13, R. 5, 

N. E. pt T. 6, R. 6, 

N. W. pt T. 6, R. 6, 

E. pt T, 7, R. 6, 

W. pt T. 7, R. 63 

T. 8, R. 6, 
T. 9, R. 6, 
T. 11, R. 6, 
T. 12, R. 6, 

S. pt T. 13, R. 6, 

N. E. pt T. 6, R. 7, 

N.W.pt T. 6, R. 7, 

E. pt, T. 7, R. 7, 

W. pt T. 7, R. 7, 



Sardinia. 

Sardinia. 

Holland. 

Wales. 

Alden. 

Newstead. 

Newstead. 

Sardinia. 

Concord. 

Sardinia. 

Concord. 

Coldep. 

Aurora. 

Lancaster. 

Clarence. 

Clarence. 

Concord. 

Collins. 

Concord. 

Collins. 



W. tier lots,..T. 
E. pt T. 

T. 
W. 2 tier lots, T. 
N. tier lots,...T. 

Residue T. 

S. E.2 1ots,...T. 

Residue, T. 

S. pt T. 

N. pt T. 

T. 

T. 

S. W. pt T. 

Residue, T. 

S. W. pt T. 

Residue, T. 

S. & E. pt....T. 

S. pt T. 

N. pt T. 



8, R. 7, 

8, R. 7, 

9, R. 7, 
11, R. 7, 
11, R. 7, 

11, R. 7, 

12, R. 7, 

12, R. 7, 

13, R. 7, 

6, R. 8, 

7, R. 8, 

8, R. 8, 

9, R. 8, 
9, R. 8, 

11, R. 8, 

11, R. 8, 

12, R. 8, 
8, R. 9, 
8, R. 9, 



Eden. 

Boston. 

Hamburg. 

Black Rock. 

Amherst. 

Cheektowaga. 

Tonawanda. 

Amherst 

Amherst. 

Collins. 

Collins. 

Eden. 

Evans. 

Hamburg. 

Buffalo City. 

Black Rock. 

Tonawanda. 

Brandt. 

Evans. 



NIAGARA. 



N.pt T. 13, R. 5, 

T. 14, R. 5, 
T. 15, R. 5, 
T. 16, R. 5, 

N. E. pt T. 13, R. 6, 

N.W.pt T. 13, R. 6, 

E. pt T. 14, R. 6, 

W. pt T. 14, R. 6, 

E. pt T. 15, R. 6, 

W. pt T. 15, R. 6, 

E. pt T. 16, R. 6, 

W. pt T. 16, R. 6, 

N. pL T. 13, R. 7, 



Royalton. 
Royalton. 
Hartland. 
Somerset. 
Royalton. 
Lockport. 
Royalton. 
Lockport. 
Hartland. 
Newfane. 
Somerset. 
Newfane. 
Pendleton. 



E. pt T. 14, R. 7, Lockport. 

W. pt T. 14, R. 7, Cambria. 

E. pt T. 15, R. 7, Newfane. 

W. pt T. 15, R. 7, Wilson. 

N. W. pt T. 12, R. 8, Wheatfield. 

T. 13, R. 8, Wheatfield. 

E. pt T. 14, R. 8, Cambria. 

W. pt T. 14, R. 8, Lewiston. 

E. pt T. 15, R. 8, Wilson. 

W. pt T. 15, R. 8, Porter. 

T. 13, R. 9, Niagara. 

T. 14, R. 9, Lewiston. 

T. 15, R. 9, Porter. 



CHAUTAUQUE. 



T. 1, R. 10, Carrol. I 

T. 2, R. 10, Poland. N. tier lots,. 

T. 3, R. 10, Ellington. S. E. pt.... 

T. 4, R. 10, Cherry Creek. S. W. pt... 
T. 5, R. 10, Villanovia. ! 



T. 6, R. 10, Hanover. 
.T. 1, R. 11, Ellicott. 
.T. 1, R. 11, Carrol. 
.T. 1, R 11, Busti. 

T. 2, R 11, Ellicott 



APPENDIX. 



CHAUTAUQUE, Continued. 



S. E. pt. 4 lots, 

Residue, 

E.pt 

W. pt 

S. E. pt 

S. W. pt. 



3, R. 11, Gerry. 

4, R. 11, Charlotte. 

5, R. 11, Arkwright. 

6, R. 11, Hanover. 
6, R. 11, Sheridan. 
1, R. 12, Busti. 

1, R. 12, Harmony. 

2, R. 12, Busti. 



.T. 2, R. 12, Harmony. 

N. pt. . .' T. 2, R. 12, Ellery. 

N. tier lots, T. 3, R. 12, Stockton. 

Residue T. 3, R. 12, Ellery. 

T. 4, R. 12, Stockton. 

T. 5, R. 12, Pomfret. 

T. 6, R. 12, Pomfret. 

T. 1, R. 13, Harmony. 

T. 2, R. 13, Harmony. 



N. E. lot, T. 3, R. 13, Stockton. 

Res. E. tier,..T. 3, R. 13, Ellery. 

W. pt T. 3, R. 13, Chautauque. 

E. tier lots,...T. 4, R. 13, Stockton. 
. T. 4, R. 13, Portland. 
.T. 4, R. 13, Chautaucjue. 
T. 5, R. 13, Portland. 
T. 1, R. 14, Clymer. 
T. 2, R. 14, Sherman. 
.T. 3, R. 14, Chautauque. 

W." pt T. 3, R. 14, Westfield. 

S. £. pt T. 4, R. 14, Chautauque. 

Residue, T. 4, R. 14, Westfield. 

T. 1, R. 15, French Creek. 
T. 2, R. 16, Mina. 
T. 3, R. 15, Ripley. 



N. W. pt. . 
Residue, 



E. pt. 



CANAL VILLAGES. 



Although advancing somewhat beyond the Pioneer History of the Holland Purchase, 
as the construction of the Erie Canal has been included, some pioneer sketches of the 
villages it has created, are suggested: — 

Black Rock. — At an early period, as will have been observed, this was a place of 
some note, a prominent point of ferriage over the Niagara river, and until 1823, the 
principal depot of lake commerce, at the foot of lake Erie. With its store house, tavern 
and ferry house, a few scattered dwellings, and soldiers' barracks and batteries, it was 
a busy, stirring place in the war of 1812; a battle ground upon two or three occasions. 
It recovered slowly after the burning and pillaging during the war. In the construction 
of the capacious harbor for lake and canal commerce, it seemed to have acquired 
advantages to ensure its rapid progress and permanent prosperity. During the progress 
of the construction of the harbor, and for several years after the completion of the 
entire Canal, population increased rapidly, building was brisk, and business establish- 
ments followed one after another, in rapid succession. At one period there was no 
locality upon the Erie Canal that seemed to have acquired a better start. 

The securing, however, of a harbor at Buffalo, and its gradual improvement, diverted 
the commerce of the lakes, and whereever that went, canal commerce was sure to 
follow. At a critical period of village rivalry, Buffalo was fortunate in the possession 
of men in her interests of extraordinary enterprise and perseverance; capital and 
ownership of lake craft began to centre there; and the scale turned in its favor. For a 
long period the village of Black Rock declined, or remained but stationary, in the lee 
or shadow of its successful and powerful rival; the traveler never failing to wonder, 
while passing up its capacious harbor, and witnessing the hydraulic power it created, 
why such advantages were so little improved. 

In the mean time, its successful and over-shadowing rival, growing generous in its 
career of prosperity — forgetful of old controversies — has been expanding, and extend- 
ing a right arm to embrace and merge it in one continuous and consolidated City of 
THE Lakes. And who that has witnessed the mighty influences of lake and canal 
commerce; that sees new states and territories becoming tributary' to this most fortunate 
locality; the fertile regions of the west that are calling for more room at the foot of lake 
Erie; doubts the speedy consummation of the event that we have indicated? 

ToNA WANDA. — Provious to the construction of the Canal, there had been, upon the 



654 APPENDIX. 

site of Tonawanda village, but a small beginning in the way of farming, and a log 
tavern which was, in an early day, kept by Garrett Van Slyke, who afterwards moved 
up the creek. A toll bridge was erected in 1825. 

In 1823, William Williams, Latham A. Burrows, Samuel Wilkeson, Townsend & 
Coit, and Albert H. Tracy purchased five or six hundred acres of land, which embraced 
the site of the village, on the Erie side of the creek. Mr. Williams erected a saw mill 
upon the dam, in 1825. In 1824, John Sweeny and George Goundry purchased tlie 
land which embraces that part of the village which lies on the Niagara side of the 
creek; Mr. Sweeny erected a saw mill in 1825. The proprietors platted the village 
soon after their purchases. 

With many business advantages, connected with lake, river, and canal commerce, 
the growth of the place was, in early years, seriously effected by the flooding of lands, 
consequent upon the raising of the water of the Tonawanda and Eleven Mile creeks, 
to perfect canal navigation. In 1840, the state constructed ditches, the effects of which 
have been to reclaim drowned lands, improve the health of the place, and give a start 
to improvements. The agricultural interests of the neighborhood, as in all simileu* 
cases, have suffered from the attention of a large portion of the population being diverted 
to the business of lumbering. That hindrance being gradually obviated, as the fine oak 
of the region has been exhausted, there are few portions of the Holland Purchase, which, 
for the last few years, have given more evident signs of improvement and progress, 
than the neighborhood of Tonawanda. 

A new impetus has been given to the place within the present year. A company of 
capitalists from Cleveland, invited by the facilities that exist there for transhipments from 
lake craft to canal boats, have purchased thirteen or fourteen hundred acres of land 
on the Erie side of the creek, erected a capacious storehouse and elevator, a storehouse 
for rolling freight, and have other improvements projected. A new era may be said to 
have commenced at Tonawanda. 

LocKPORT. — This large flourishing village, now numbering its eight thousand inhab- 
itants, its five extensive flouring mills, and as many lumbering establishments, aside 
from a large cotton factory, and various other branches of manufactories; its Union 
School, liberally endowed, with its five and six hundred pupils; its fifty or sixty mercan- 
tile establishments; is the offspring wholly of the Erie Canal. The site was a wilder- 
ness, dotted with but two or three log houses, and stinted improvements, when the 
canal was located. Its pioneer history is all that is embraced in our present object. 

The original proprietors of the village site, or those who purchased the lands from the 
Holland Company, were, Zeno Comstock, Nathan Comstock, Webster Thorn, Daniel 
Smith, Eseck Brown, Almon H. Millard, Reuben Haines, David Frink, John Com- 
stock, Nathan B. Rogers, Joseph Otis, Daniel Washburn, Asahel Smith, and James 
Conkey. IJiJ'See page 551. The first saw mill (or machinery of any kind erected 
upon the village site) stood in the gulf just above the cotton factorj'. It was erected by 
Zeno Comstock, in 1819. David Frink built the first saw mill down the stream; War- 
ren Saddler the next, and Otis Hathaway the next. 

The author cannot give, in any form, a more graphic account of primitive things, of 
the early pioneer period, in the history of Lockport, than is contained in the following 
sketch, furnished with reference to this work, by Morris H. Tucker, Esq. the pioneer 
merchant: — 

"When I came to Lockport in the summer of 1821, there were some half dozen 
families residing in unfinished log houses, and a number of men were building small 
houses, expecting to bring their families as soon as they could finish the tenements. 

" Eseck Brown kept the only tavern, in a log house, on the rise of ground a little west 
of the Lutheran Church. Here the canal contractors all boarded, and a happier set of 



APPENDIX. 655 

fellows I never saw collected together. John M'Kay and Claudius V. Boughton had 
the contract for a considerable distance of the rock cutting, were clearing and grubbing 
from the Main' street bridge, westwardly, and soon commenced excavating at the head 
of the locks. 

" Jared Comstock and Eaeck Brown were selling village lots on Main street 
Brown's land was cleared from Genesee street to a little north of Caledonia street, and 
extended from Prospect street to the Transit. Jared Comstock's laud was cleared from 
his south bounds to the north side of Niagara street. From the north side of Niagara 
street the land of Comstock was uncleared, and the land from the head of the locks, 
around the ravine, embracing all the Lower Town, and extending as far east as the 
residence of Judge Dayton, was a dense forest. Here Nathan Comstock's improve- 
ments commenced. 

" In the summer or fall of 1821, Col. William M. Bond came on from New Hamp- 
shire and purchased several acres of Brown's land and laid it out into village lots. He 
united with John M'Kay, Henr}- Wright, (an engineer, son of Benjamin Wright, one 
of the early Principal Engineers,) and myself, in persuading Brown to lay out a good 
part of his farm into village lots; and he was induced to add Niagara, Ontario, Caledonia, 
Genesee, Bond, and Prospect Streets, to his village plat. Jared Comstock also added, 
east of the Transit, Walnut, Genesee, Cottage, Pine, Locust, Elm, and Canal Streets, 
representing a large city on paper, causing much merriment to our elder neighbors of 
Buffalo, Lewiston, and the Falls; and they were not sparing of their jokes at our village, 
with its log taverns, including the noted log 'cottage.' 

" I brought with me from Batavia an old stock of goods, which I stored at Eseck 
Brown's until I could build a store. There was no store nearer than Harlland Corners. 
When it became known to the women that I had good tea stored at Brown's, no excuse 
would answer, have it they would, and I was obliged to open shop. In two or three 
weeks I moved my goods into a new framed store, an imposing building at that time, 
twenty-two feet square, a story and a half high. Here for several weeks I had no 
opposition in trade. Soon, however, House & Boughton got their new store finished, 
and Libbeus Fish brought on goods from Batavia, and Lockport began to be a place of 
no little importance. Sheperd & Towner's shoe shop, George Rogers' blacksmith shop. 
Seaman & Batty's shoe shop, John Jackson's bakery, with several small groceries, 
were often named and counted over, when recommending our village to some new 
adventurer, to induce him to buy a village lot. That summer the rattle snakes were so 
numerous that they occasioned much alarm to the villagers." 

The proprietors who had an interest in the village plat east of the Transit with Jared 
Comstock, (of whom Mr. Tucker speaks,) were his brothers, Darius and Joseph, and 
Seymour Scovell, and Otis Hathaway. Joseph Comstock died in 1822. Jared Com- 
stock, however, had the largest interest, and the titles to the largest share of that portion 
of the village have come from him. Elias Ransom, Esq. becoming his agent at an 
early period, and generally perfecting the sales. The purchase that the above named 
proprietors made, was principally of Zeno Comstock, who had bought of Holland Com- 
pany. In possession of the most valuable portion of what now constitutes the Upper 
Town, he sold, and bought at the head of the gulf, a mile and a quarter west, at a time 
when there was a prospect of the canal taking that route. 

Jesse Hawley early became interested with Wm. M. Bond, (of whom Mr. Tucker 
speaks,) with whom was associated John G. Bond, an early and prominent pioneer of 
Rochester, who became a resident of Lockport in 1822. They purchased most (if not 
all) of the original farm lot of Eseck Brown. They may be regarded as the founders 
and patroons of the village west of the Transit; while the Comstocks, Scovell, and 
Hathaway, bore that relation to the portion of the Upper* Village east of that line. 

There had been a newspaper printed at Lewiston, for a short time previous to 1822, 
the first in the country, by Bartemus Ferguson. Some of the prominent citizens of 
Lockport purchased the printing materials and transferred them and its publisher to 
Lockport, early in that year. A paper was started, entitled the " Lockport Observa- 
tory." The author purchased the establishment, and became the editor and publisher 
of the paper, in August, of that year. And a rough and primitive village it then was, 
as any, perhaps, that ever gloried in an old fashioned Ramage press, and a few fonts of 



656 APPENDIX. 

worn-out t5^e ! The village had advanced considerably in one year, from the condition 
described by Mr. Tucker, and yet there were log heaps and huge piles of rocks in the 
principal streets. There were not over a dozen or fifteen frame buildings, and but one 
of stone, a store that had been erected by Sydney and Thomas Smith; the rest were of 
logs. The old Mansion House had first been erected by James M'Kain, and Samuel 
Jennings had built the framed tavern house, now standing, near the Eagle Tavern. 
The author well recollects that, on the evening of his arrival in the village, there was a 
dancing party at this last named " Lockport Hotel," highly pleased with the idea that 
they had got a matched and planed floor to dance on. It marked a new era. With the 
exception of Nathan Comstock's improvements, it was a dense forest from the present 
site of the American to Wright's Corners, on the Ridge Road. Culver and Maynard 
were clearing the timber from the slopes of the mountain, around the ravine, and exca- 
vating the first rock section; Childs and Hamlin were excavating the second section; 
Darius Comstock, the third; John Gilbert, the fourth; Norton, Bates, House, and 
Boughton, the fifth and last rock section. The dense forest between Lockport and 
Tonawanda creek looked as if a hurricane had passed through it, leaving a narrow belt 
of fallen timber, excavated stone and earth; and that, to complete the ragged scene, 
log boarding houses and Irish shanties had been strung along the whole distance. The 
blasting of rocks was going on briskly, on that part of the canal located upon the village 
site; rocks were flying in all directions; framed buildings, and the roofs of log buildings 
were battered by them, and huge piles of stone lay upon both banks of the canal, with 
a narrow opening to admit the passage of teams over a log bridge, on Main Street. 
Joseph Landon was grubbing the timber, preparatory to the construction of the first 
section, east of the locks. The first stone of the old locks was laid in the spring 
of 1823. 

Two circumstances attending the construction of the canal through the Mountain 
Ridge are worthy of note: — As the rock excavation deepened, it baffled the ingenuity 
of commissioners and contractors, became expensive beyond all estimate; no greater 
facilities existed for raising the rock, than wheelbarrows and long runs. In this 
exigency. Orange Dibble, since widely known as a canal contractor on various public 
works of the United States, and as Post Master at Buffalo, with a brother-in-law of his, 
by the name of Olmsted, invented and introduced a simple crane, that revolutionized 
the work, vastly cheapened it, and in the end, was the means of completing the canal 
one year before it could have been done in the absence of it. In the original construc- 
tion of the locks, the contractors, at great expense, opened a road through the woods, to 
Williamsville, to procure their water lime. At the same time, in excavating the lock- 
pits and a portion of their rock section, they were removing immense quantities of 
stone capable of making an hydraulic cement equal in quality to the best that has been 
discovered in the United States. It was used in the construction of the new locks, and 
has become an article of commerce upon the canal and lakes, for use in public struc- 
tures, or whereever such a material is required. The credit of demonstrating its 
superior quality, and introducing it into extensive use, belongs to Mr. Seth Pierce, of 
Lockport. 

The early merchants of Lockport, not named by Mr. Tucker, were Sidney and 
Thomas Smith, Jonathan Childs, Joel M'Collum, Lyman A. Spaulding, Harvey W. 
Campbell, Price & Rounds, Joel M. Parks, William and Seth Parsons, George W. 
Rogers, Hall & Barber, (W. Barron Williams, as agent for Van Rensselaer, of Utica,) 
Jacob Gould, Daniel O. Davis, and Cummings & M'Whorter. Among the early 
mechanics not before named, were Allen Skinner, Hull & Story, John Gait, Charles 

Belden, Levi Taylor, Lozier, Long, John Moore. The early physicians 

were Isaac W. Smith, Webb, Stephen M. Potter, Lloyd Smith, Marlin Johnson, 



APPENDIX. 65? 

George W. Palmer, Henry Maxwell. The early attornies have been named iu another 
connection. 

The pioneer movements in Lower Town commenced in Ma?ch, 1827. Joel M' 
Collum, Seymour Scovell, Otis Hathaway, and Sylvester R. Hathaway, purchased 
three hundred acres of land of Nathan Comstock, which extended from Main Street, 
through to the old Lewiston road, and embraced nearly all of what is now designated 
as the Lower Town. These proprietors, after making considerable improvements, 
constructing roads, building saw mills, «&c. sold an interest in their purchase, of seven- 
tenths, to Charles E. Dudley, Benjamin Knower, Thomas W. Olcott, William L. 
Marcy, and Lett Clark. These last named proprietors were what was termed the 
"Albany Company." They had, previous to this, by purchase from the Holland Com- 
pany, become the owners of all the unsold lands in Niagara, Orleans, and the noith 
parts of Genesee and Erie; tracts comprising, in the aggregate, about eighty thousand 
acres. The agency was established in the Lower Town, Mr. Clark becoming the agent 
In 1830, the bank, the Episcopal church, the large brick block, s-everal fine dwellings 
were built, and other improvements made; Seymour Scovell making large additions 

to the old Lockport House that had been erected by Van Velzer. The Albany 

Company continued to retail these wild lands, until 1834 or '35; Washington Hunt 
entering the office of Mr. Clark, previous to his majority, and transacting most of the 
business appertaining to land sales. At the period above named. Judge Hunt, in com- 
pany with Henry Walbridge, purchased the unsold lands of the Albany Company, and 
under their auspices the lands have been sold and settled, upon terms of liberality and 
indulgence, that have materially aided the prosperity of the region in which they were 
located. 

The early merchants in Lower Town were Tucker & Bissell, Otis Hathaway, John 
& Isaac Henning, Frederick Bissell, Stephen Gooding, Eaton &, Brown, Stafford & 
Humphrey, G. W. Merchant, Scovell & Saxe. The earliest physician was J. K. 
Skinner. Among the earliest mechanics were Horace Birdsall, Daniel W. Ballou, 

Willis Feck, Asher Torrance, Stephen Brizee, William Olney, Harvey Norton, 

Stimpson, William Shepherd, Enos Steel, Wilham Hewitt, Samuel Works, Warren 
Grant, Peter Besancon. 

John Gooding was the patroon of what is known as "Pioneer Hill," and Samuel 
Allen and Otis Hathaway, of that portion ofthe village in the neighborhood of the 
Union School and the Catholic church. 

In the process of canal enlargement, the old double tier of locks have been removed, 
and new ones erected, that surpass, in magnitude, and in the manner of construction, 
any work of the kind in the world. The contract for rebuilding was at first taken by 
Smith, Parmelee & Co. who, after getting the first tier in a considerable state of for- 
wardness, sold their contract to Judge Buel, of Rochester, by whom the work has been 
nearly completed. The magnificent structure has been made under the superintend- 
ence of the following engineers, who have, at different periods, had the superintendence 
of it: — Alfred Barrett, J. D. Fay, Thomas Evershed, Stephen F. Gooding. The cost 
of the work has been over $575,000. 

MiDDLEPORT. — This flourishing, rural village, pleasant in its aspect, as any that are 
dotted along the Erie Canal, grew up on lands, and in the immediate neighborhood, of 
Pioneers that had preceded canal location; they were James Lyman, James WilUams, 
Jr. Asher Freeman, Asa Sawtell, Philarius Williams, Russell Ewings, Arunah 
Bennett, William Tajlor, Thomas T. Smith. Levi Cole became a resident there 
about the period of the canal letting, became a contractor and the pioneer tavern keeper. 
Benjamin Barlow, Jr. an early member of Assembly from Niagara, was a resident 



658 APPENDIX. 

there as early as 1820 or '21. Dr. Packard was tho early physician. Dunlap & Craig, 

Francis B. Lane, Alden S. Baker, Northam were early merchants. Lane & 

Baker had been contractors on the canal at the Sulphur Springs, west of Lockport, 
settled at Middleport about the period of the completion of the canal, and have been 
conspicuously identified with its history and progress. Mr. Lane died during the last 
winter. Dr. Hurd settled there as a physician in an early day. Elijah Mathers and 
Thomas N. Lee were among the earliest mechanics. The village commands the prin- 
cipal trade of a fine region of country, and has kept pace with its rapid improvements. 

Medina. — The site of the village was an unbroken wilderness when the canal was 
located. The village was laid out in 1823, by Ebenezer Mix, and named by him. 
Its site occupied nearly the center of a tract of fourteen hundred acres, owned by David 
E. Evans and John B. Ellicott. The large mill now owned by Wra. R. Gwinn, was 
going up in 1823, when the village was projected. Mr. Gwinn, who married a niece 
of Joseph Ellicott and a sister of D. E. Evans, became a resident at Medina in 1828, 
and has been prominently connected with the settlement and progress of the village. 
The improvements at Medina have been gradual and permanent. There is a valuable 
water power created by a fall in the Oak Orchard creek, and the Tonawanda feeder. 
Like the whole region around them, Medina and Shelby villages furnish evidences 
of progress and improvement; they are going ahead, as all villages upon the Holland 
Purchase are. [The author has to regret the 'absence of memorandums which would 
enable him to name the earhest citizens of Medina.] 

Albion. — [For some notice of the pioneer settlers upon and near the village site 
seepage 554.] The fine lands in the immediate neighborhood of Albion had attracted 
settlers at a pretty early period in the settlement of the country, and previous to the 
location of the canal a considerable advance had been made in improvements. The 
village, however, was one of the creations of that great founder of villages and cities; 
commencing gradually, as the work progressed, and was brought into use. In 1823 it 
had sufficiently advanced to indicate the necessity of a press and newspaper, and Oliver 
Covvdery, (who has been the pioneer printer in at least a half dozen localities,) took a 
part of the old battered " small pica" that had been used in printing the Lockport Obser- 
vatorj-, and adding to it indifferent materials from other sources, commenced the publi- 
cation of the " Newport Patriot." 

Wm. Bradner, Harvey Goodrich, R. S. & L. Burrows were early merchants. The 
early physicians were Orson Nichoson, A. B. Mills, William White, Stephen M. 
Potter. Philetus Bumpus was an early tavern keeper, if not the pioneer in that line. 
The author, as in reference to Medina, has to regret the absence of minutes which 
would enable him to name the early mechanics and other village Pioneers. 

The first Methodist society was organized in 1830; the first Baptist society, the same 
year; the first Presbyterian society, in 1822; the first Episcopal organization was in 
1844. Albion Academy was incorporated in 1837; Phipp's Union Seminar)', in 1840. 

The first Board of Trustees of the village were as follows: — Alexis Ward, Preeidenf; 
Orson Nichoson, William Bradner, Freeman Clark, Franklin Fenton. 

The progress of Albion has been gradual and uniform, keeping pace with agricul- 
tural improvements in its fertile neighborhood. In the midst of universal prosperity, 
such as eveiy where exists upon the Holland Purchase, it is difficult to discriminate; 
but no where are the evidences of increasing, substantial wealth exhibited in a greater 
degree, than in Orleans and its smiling and flourishing villages, Albion, Gaines, Me- 
dina, Shelby, Knowlesville, Eagle Harbor, and Gaines' Basin. 



APPENDIX. 



65d 




THE ELLICOTT MONUMENT. 



The monument to Joseph Ellicott, the plan of which is annexed, 
is now in the course of erection, the materials of which were prin- 
cipally carried upon the ground during the last winter. It is to be 
erected at the expense of a portion of the heirs, under the general 
supervision of the Hon. David E. Evans. The elevation is to be 
thirty- two feet; the main shaft, sixteen and one-half feet. The 
inscription not being prepared, is omitted upon the drawing. 



Note. — The architects are Messrs. B. & J. Carpenter, of Lockport; the materials 
are from their vahiable quarry of limestone. The shaft is a fine specimen of what the 
quarries of the Mountain Ridgfe are capable of producing, except as to length. At 
either of the three quarries of the Messrs. Carpenters, Jerome B. Ransom's, (formerly 
Buell'a,) or that of J. D. Shuler, at the Cold Springs, shafts of solid limestone may be 
procured, up to eighty feet in length. The superior quality of the stone, its extraordi- 
nary durability, and capability of resisting the action of dampness and frost, have been 
abundantly tested, especially upon our public works. 



660 APPENDIX. 



EXPEDITIONS OF GENERAL SULLIVAN AND COLONEL BRODHEAD 
COTEMPORARY RECORDS. 



These two expeditions, together with that of Col. Van Schaick, had for their end the 
punishment and conquest of the hostile Indian nations that had, with assimilated 
Tories, so long and often desolated the frontier settlements of Western New York and 
Pennsylvania. Of Gen. Sullivan and Col. Schaick's expeditions accounts will be found 
in the text. Of Col. Brodhead's, nothing has been related, though it was organized about 
the same time, formed an important part of the general plan, which originally contem- 
plated the union of both armies, and a combined attack on Fort Niagara. Both were 
successful so far as their separate objects were concerned, but their ultimate destination 
was never reached; — the large bodies of Tories and Indians collected around the for- 
tress at Niagara, furnishing a safe reti-eat and shelter for the finally broken and defeated 
bands of Johnson, Butler, and Brant — were left undisturbed. 

Since that part of the volume relative to the Border Wars of the Revolution was 
written, some original, authentic and entirely trustworthy documents — now in posses- 
sion of Mr. Daniel W. Ballon, Jr., of Lockport — have been kindly furnished the author, 
and are here inserted. It is not known that they have ever before been published, 
or even alluded to, by historians of the Revolution. ■ They are copied directly from an 
old manuscript journal of the year 1779, in which are recorded daily orders issued by 
Gen. Washington to the army, proceedings of Court Martials, with the names of ofli- 
cers forming the boards, the names of those tried, their acquittal or conviction, beside 
other transactions connected with affairs of the camp. These extracts may, therefore, 
be regarded as copies of official announcements made by the Commander-in-Chief to 
the troops under his immediate command, at West Point. The victory of General 
Sullivan is thus communicated by General Washington, October 17th: — 
'^ Extract from His Excellency, Gen. Washington's Orders. 

"Head Quarters, More's House, Oct. 17, 1779. 
" The Commander-in-Chief has now tlie pleasure of congratulating the army on the 
complete and full success of Maj. Gen. Sullivan, and tire troops under his command, 
against the Seneca and other tribes of the Six Nations, as a just and necessary punish- 
ment for their wanton depredations, their unparalleled and innumerable cruelties, their 
deafness to all remonstrances and entreaty, and their perseverance in the most horrid 
acts of barbarity. Forty of their towns have been reduced to ashes, some of them 
large and commodious; that of the Genesee alone containing one hundred and twenty- 
eight houses. Their crops of corn have been entirely destroyed, — which, by estimation, 
it is said, would have provided 160,000 bushels, besides large quantities of vegetables 
of various kinds. Their whole country has been overrun and laid waste; and they 
themselves compelled to place their security in a precipitate flight to the British fortress 
at Niagara; — and the whole of this has been done with the loss of less than forty men 
on our part, including the killed, wounded, captured, and those who died natural deaths. 
The troops employed in this expedition, both officers and men, throughout the whole of 
it, and in the action the}' had with the enemy, manifested a patience, perseverance, and 
valor that do them the highest honor. In the course of it, when there still remained a 
large extent of the enemy's countiy to be prostrated, it became necessary to lessen the 
issues of provisions to half the usual allowance. In this the troops acquiesced with 
a most general and cheerful concurrence, being fully determined to surmount every 
obstacle, and to prosecute the enterprise to a complete and successful issue. Maj. Gen. 
Sullivan, for his great perseverance and activity; for his order of march and attack, and 
the whole of his dispositions; the Brigadiers and officers of all ranks, and the whole 
of the soldiers engaged in the expedition, merit, and have the Commander-in-Chief's 
warmest acknowledgements, for their important services upon this occasion." 

As nothing has been said of Col. Brodhead's campaign, it may be proper to state 
that on the 22d of March, 1779, Washington ordered him to make the necessary pre- 



APPENDIX. 661 

paratioBS for an expedition against Detroit, to throw a detachment forward to Kittaning, 
and another beyond to Venango, at the same time preserving the strictest secrecy as to 
his ultimate object. Though this expedition was soon found impracticable and aban- 
doned, preparations were immediately made for the one which was actually undertaken 
against the Indians at the head of the Allegany river, French creek, and other tribu- 
taries of the Ohio. On the 11th of August, 1779, with about six hundred men, includ- 
ing militia and volunteers, and one month's provisions, Col. Daniel Brodhead left Fort 
Pitt and began his march to the Indian country. The result was announced by Gen. 
Washington to his army at West Point: — 

"Extract from General Orders. 

" Head Quarters, More's House, Oct. 18th, 1779. 

" The Commander-in-Chief is happy in the opportunity of congratulating the army 
on our further success, by advices just arrived. Col. Brodhead, with the Continental 
troops under his command, and a body of militia and volunteers, has penetrated about 
one hundred and eighty miles into the Indian country, on the Allegany river, burnt ten 
of the Muncey and Seneca towns in that quarter, containing one hundred and sixty- 
five houses; destroyed all their fields of corn, computed to comprehend five hundred 
acres, besides large quantities of vegetables; obliging the Savages to flee before him 
with the greatest precipitation, and to leave behind them many skins and other articles of 
value. The only opposition the Savages ventured to give our troops, on this occasion, 
was near Cuskusking. About forty of their warriors, on their way to commit barbarity 
on our frontier settlers, were met here. Lieut. Harden, of the 8th Pennsylvania regiment, 
at the head of one of our advance parties, composed of thirteen men, of whom eight 
were of our friends the Delaware nation, who immediately attacked the savages and 
put them to the rout, with the loss of five killed on the spot, and of all their canoes, 
blankets, shirts, and provisions, of which, as is usual for them when going into action, 
they had divested themselves; and also of several arms. Two of our men and one of 
our Indian friends were very slightly wounded in the action, which was all the damage 
we sustained in the whole enterprise. 

" The activity, perseverance, and firmness, which marked the conduct of Col. Brod- 
head, and that of all the officers and men, of every description, in this expedition, do 
them great honor, and their services justly entitle them to the thanks, and to this testimo- 
nial of the General's acknowledgment." 

In a letter dated " West Point, 20th October, 1779," addressed to the Marquis de 
Lafayette, Gen. Washington incidentally alludes to these two campaigns, and their 
probable effects upon the Indians. He informs Gen. Lafayette as news that may be 
interesting to him, that — 

" Gen. Sullivan has completed the entire destruction of the country of the Six Nations; 
driven all their inhabitants, men, women, and children, out of it; and is at Easton on 
his return to join this army, with the troops under his command. He performed this 
service without losing forty men, either by the enemy or by sickness. While the Six 
Nations were under this rod of correction, the Mingo and Muncey tribes, living on the 
Allegany, French creek, and other waters of the Ohio, above Fort Pitt, met with similar 
chastisement from Col. Brodhead, who, with six hundred men, advanced upon them 
at the same instant, and laid waste their countrj-. These unexpected and severe strokes 
have disconcerted, humbled, and distressed the Indians exceedingly; and will, I am 
persuaded, be productive of great good, as they are undeniable proofs to them, that 
Great Britain cannot protect theni, and that it is in our power to chastise them whenever 
their hostile conduct deserves it." — Spark's Writings of Washington, Vol. VI, p. 384. 



THE SEQUEL OF HOLLAND COMPANY INVESTMENT. 



The author nas no data to determine what was the final result, so far as profits are 
concerned, of the Holland Company's investment. Some indication of it is perhaps 
afforded by the fact, that in 1821, the Dutch proprietors offered to make an assignment 
of their entire interest, for a consideration which would cover the original amount of 



662 APPENDIX. 

purchase money, and an interest of four per cent. In 1822, they offered to Messrs. 
Tibbets & Huntington, well known capitalists of that period, all the unsold lands, for 
four shillings per acre. Nearly half of the entire Purchase was then unsold. These 
offers, however, may have been somewhat induced by a disposition to close up a pro- 
tracted business, and to avoid the perplexities and litigations which were then in pros- 
pect. The final result was probably better than would be inferred from these offers. 



THE OGDEN PRE-EMPTION. 



In 1810, the Holland Company sold all their pre-emptive right to the Indian Reser- 
vations, to David A. Ogden, for fifty cents per acre. What is known as the Ogden 
Company, have extinguished the Indian title to all the Reservations, except the Catta- 
raugus, Allegany, and the largest portion of the Tonawanda. They assume to have, 
by treaty, extinguished the title of the Indians to the whole of the Tonawanda 
Reservation; but possession is resisted by the Indians, and proceedings are now pend- 
ing in our courts in reference to it; from which controversy may this remnant of the 
Iroquois, whose history has been mingled in our narrative, have a good deliverance. 
There has been quite enough of attainted Indian treaties in Western New York, under 
thjs Ogden claim, and removal and possession in pursuance of them. 



GERMAN EMIGRANTS. 



The location of German emigrants upon the Holland Purchase, forms a prominent 
feature of recent events. In Buffalo, they already compose nearly one-third of the 
entire population, and are mingled in almost all of its branches of business. They 
have spread out from there, into the towns of Cheektowaga, Lancaster, Black Rock, 
Tonawanda, Newstead, Amherst, Clarence, Hamburg, Eden, Boston, Wales, Sheldon, 
Bennington, Orangeville, and Attica; in some of the towns named, making a largo 
proportion of the aggregate population. 

In Niagara county, there are three villages or colonies of Prussians; the first came 
into the county in 1843, purchased and located upon 4000 acres of land in the northern 
and central parts of Wheatfield, in which is located the village of Bergholtz. During 
the same year, another village was founded on the Tonawanda creek, at the mouth 
of Cayuga creek, called Martinsville; and a third has been added, on the Shawnee 
road leading from Lockport to Niagara Falls, called Wallmow. The three villages are 
all in the town of Wheatfield; their aggregate population, is nearly 2000. They are 
refugees from religious persecution; their religious faith is purely Lutheran, with the 
Augsburg confession as their standard. They are not communists, or Fourierites, their 
lands being held in severalty, and yet there is among them a system of mutual aid and 
common interests, that grows out of their position and religious organization. The 
poor among them have small tracts of land set apart for their use, and have the privi- 
lege of purchasing upon long credits. They brought with them their ministers, school 
masters, and mechanics; the excellent indications, meeting and school houses, marked 
their advent; industry and thrift are the general aspects of their settlements. 



RICHARD SMITH. 



The name of this Pioneer lawj'er upon the Holland Purchase, occurs in the body 
of the work but incidentally. He was a native of Sharon, Connecticut, a relative of 
Gov. John Cotton Smith; and is a lineal descendant of Dr. Cotton Mather. He became 
a resident at Batavia on the first organization of Genesee county, and is now the oldest 



APPENDIX. 663 

resident lawyer west of the Genesee river. Ho has held the office of Surrogate of 
Genesee couaty for sixteen years, and has been one of the judges of the county courts. 
He has lived a uniform life of usefulness; has been the exemplary lawyer and honest 
citizen; enjoying, at all times, the confidence and esteem of a wide circle of social and 
business acquaintances. 



THE ISLANDS OF THE NIAGARA RIVER. 



The Senecas ceded to the State of New York all the islands in the Niagara river, 
within the jurisdiction of the United States, at a treaty held at BulTalo, September 12th, 
1815; the consideration was one thousand dollars down, and five hundred dollars per 
annum, in perpetuity. 



ANCIENT REMAINS. 



Since this portion of the work was prepared, many additional interesting localities 
have been suggested to the author; especially a series of ancient fortifications that 
exist north of Aurora village, in Erie County, on the banks of Buffalo creek. Mr. E. 
G. Squier, an industrious and highly intelligent antiquarian, made a partial survey 
of Western New York, during the last winter, and intends to revisit the region during 
the approaching summer. His preliminaiy observations and drawings are already 
published in the second volume of the American Ethnological Society, and in a sepa- 
rate pamphlet form. 



CLERKS IN LAND OFFICE. 



In addition to the clerks in the principal office at Batavia, that have been named in 

the body of the work, there have been tlie following, nearly in the order in which their 
names occur: — 

John Branon, William Wood, 

Andrew A. EUicott, Walter M. Seymour, 

David Goodwin, Abram Van Tuyl, 

Pieter Huidekooper, Lewis D. Stevens, 

Stahley N. Clark, William Green, 

James Milnor, Robert \V. Lowber, 

John Lowber, Moses Beecher, 
Oliver G. Adams. 

Ira A. Blossom was Principal in the branch office at Buffalo, during its whole 
continuance. 



PIONEER PRINTERS UPON THE HOLLAND PURCHASE. 



A history of the press in Western New York has been prepared and published bj 
Frederick Follett, Esq. a worthy member of the craft, under the direction of a com- 
mittee appointed at the Franklin Festival, held at Rochester, in Jan. 1847. The 
pioneer printers upon the Holland Purchase, not heretofore named in this work, were 
as follows: — 

O^ert/i.— Benjamin F. Smead, 1818. Perry.— G. M. Shipper, 1834. 

EllicoltsviUc— Richard Hill, 182G. i'(7.-c.— Thomas Carrier, 18.3B. 

Lodi.—G. N. Starr, 1829. Forcstrdle.—W. Snow, 1821. 

Fredonia — James Percival, 1817. Javiestown. — Adolphus Fletcher, 1826 

Maydlle.—K. H. Curtiss, 1819. Wcstjlcld.—H. Newcomb, 1829. 

Panama. — Dean &, Hurlbut, 1846. Dunkirk. — Thompson & Carpenter, 1834 

Warsaic.—L. W. Walker, 1828. Batavia.— EUas Williams, 1807. 

• J«ica.— David Scott, 1834. Alexander.—?. Lawrence, 1837. 

43 



664 APPENDIX. 



MIDDLEBURY ACADEMY. 



This institution pioneered the way on the Holland Purchase, beyond the institution 
of the ordinary district schools. It was the first Academy. It was fouaded iu 1818. 
At that early day, several of the early settlers there, prominent among whom was Silas 
Newell, nppreciating the value of education, moved in the matter, and in 1819 had 
built a permanent brick building, and obtained an act of incorporation. The enterprise 
involved even the mortgaging of the farms of some of the public spirited founders. 
The Rev. Joshua Bradley was its first Principal; the Rev. Eliphalet M. Spencer was 
Lis successor. There are many, now prominent men iu Western New York and the 
Western States, who were educated at this Pioneer Academv. 



NOTES. 



Page 85. — During the last winter, O. H. Marshall, Esq. of BulTalo, communicated to 
the New York Historical Society the new fact in the history of this state, that four years 
after the expedition of Chainplain to lake Champlain, he was in another expedition, 
which embraced the present site of the county of Onondaga. To the same industrious 
researcher of the early history of cur local region, the Historical Society were indebted 
for the fict that the celebrated Archbishop Fenelon was once a missionary on the 
northern shore of lake Ontario. 

Page 102. — Their "Sainted Soneca maiden." Mohawk should probably be substi- 
tuted for Seneca, though her abiding place was sometimes with the Senecas. She was 
called by ihe Jesuits, "Catharine, the Iroquois Saint." In a letter from Father Cho- 
loner, written to one of his superiors in France, dated in 1715, she is described as a 
remarkable instance of superior piety and devotion; making in early life, vows of chas- 
tity, and setting herself apart from her people and the world for devotional exercises and 
a Ufe of holiness. She died at one of the mission stations upon the St. Lawrence, at 
the age of twenty-four years. Her tomb became a shrine of prayer, where supplica- 
tions were offered in her name; pilgiimages were made to it by devotees, for the cure 
of their diseases. The Grand Vicar of the diocess of Quebec certified that "a diar- 
rhoea which even ipecacuana could not cure," was assuaged by a vow that he would 
visit the tomb of Catharine. The Commandant at Fort Frontenac certified that his 
prayers, offered for nine days in succession, in the name of "Catharine Tegakouita," 
together with a vow to visit her tomb, had cured him of a gout that afflicted him twenty- 
three years. 

Pacre 187. — Joncaire v.'as made a prisoner by the Senecas when quite young, adopted, 
grew in high favor with them, and exercised, for a long period, a powerful influence 
against the English in favor of the French. Iu 1750, Kalm, the German traveler, 
found a son of his residing at Lewiston. There were two of his sons, officers, among 
the French Seneca allies, at the English siege of Fort Niagara. Washington met a 
son of his at the mouth of French creek, while on a mission to the French, in 1753; 
and mentions the fact, that he asserted the French claim to the Ohio by virtue of its 
discovery by La Salle. There are probably descendants of Joncaire among the Senecas. 

Page, 231. — Some years since, there wore exhumed a number of Indian skeletons, 
in the garden of Col. Bird, at Black Rock, having about them all the accompaniments 
of Indian war burial. Were not these the killed in the attack upon the English troops? 

Page 260. — Judge Thomas Butler, of Niagara, who was intimately acquainted with 



APPENDIX. 665 

Joseph Brant and his personal history, confirms the position of Mr. Diaper, in reference 
to his birth place. 

Page 330. — The author supposed he had derived his account of the death of Mr. 
Williamson from a reliable source, and yet it would seem to be erroneous. In the 
address which Gen. Porter prepared to deliver at Geneva, he states that Mr. Williamson 
had embarked from England at the first "dawnings of liberty and symptoms of revo- 
lution," in South America, with an intention to take a cons^picuous part in the contest; 
and that he died on his passage. 

Page 357. — In compiling the biographical sketch of Robert Morris, the author has 
availed himself of information derived directly from his son, the late Thomas Morris, 
Esq. of New York, from an article in the American Review, to the writer of which he 
contributed some information, and from original manuscripts obtained from other sources. 

Page 431. — In the preparation of the brief biography of tlits family of Ellicolts, tht 
author relied upon some sketches prepared for a newspaper at Ellicott's JMills, Md. they 
seeming the most authentic data within his reach. From some reminiscences that 
have since been furnished him, it would seem that the ancestors, Andrew Ellicott and 
Ann Bye, came from "Collumpton," in Devonshire, south part of England, instead 
of "Cullopton, in Wales;" that they settled, originally, in Pennsylvania, and not New 
York; and that their marriage took place in Bucks county, in 1731. This may be the 
truer history, and yet it is strangely at variance with the fragment of verse and the 
date attached to it, which is attributed to the maternal ancestor, "Ann Bye." 

Page 475. — It should have been added, that Gen. Warren passed through the several 
grades of militia offices, up to that of Major General, and that he served in the war 
of 1812, and participated in several engagements. 

Page 484. — The details of the war of 1812 have not taken a range wide enough to 
embrace such reminiscences as the one promised upon this page. There was a singu- 
lar and mournful fatality attending the family of the early pioneer mentioned by Judge 
Porter, in connection with one of his early advents, and by the author, in connection 
with some sketches of early settlement in Wyoming, — Orange Brace. At the com- 
mencement of the war, the family consisted of the parents, three sons, and three 
daughters. The old gentleman and one of the sons went upon the lines under Smyth's 
proclamation, and both died at Buffalo, of the prevailing epidemic; and a daughter 
died at Canandaigua, where she was attending school, about the same time. A son- 
in-law, Ardin Merril, was afterwards killed on board of a ferry boat, near the Canada 
shore, opposite Black Rock. The neighborhood of their residence, in Sheldon, was 
more than ordinarily affiicted; almost every family in it mourned the death of one or 
more of its members. 

Page 597. — The names of those, as far as recollected, who had resolved not to let Buf- 
falo be captured without some show of defence, were Seth Grosvenor, the early Buffalo 
merchant, now a resident of the city of New York; Elijah D. Efner, who became a citizen 
of Buffalo, in 1808; after serving' as a United States soldier, in .some of the early 
north-western campaigns, under Gen. Harrison, during which he was engaged in the 
battle of the Thames, he returned, and has since remained, an enterprising and useful 
citizen; his fine residence, on the high grounds between the city and Black Rock, 
furnishing evidence of the success that has attended a life of activity and industry; 
James Sweeny, his early partner in business, a brother of Col. John Sweeny, of Ton- 
awanda; Robert Kaene, an early citizen of Buffalo, whose name, in other instances, is 
honorablv associated with the war of 1812; Elisha Foster, now of Fredouia, and 



nSG APPENDIX. 

Messrs. Hull & Johnson, of whom the author has no recollections or memorandums 
They had taken the cannon from an old beached vessel, mounted it upon truck wheels, 
and were contesting British conquest bravely, when one of the wheels broke, just as 
Col. Chapin went to meet the invaders with a flag of truce. 

Page 539. — Joncaire told Charlevoix that at a place the Iroquois called " Ganos," 
(the present Seneca name of Oil Spring Reservation is "Ganohs," differing, as will 
be seen, but slightly,) there was a spring, the waters of which were like oil, and their 
taste like iron; and he also told him that ;it a little distance from it there was another of 
the same character, the waters of which were used by the savages to cure all manner 
of diseases. The spring is also described minutely in the Jesuit P^elations for 1656 and 
'57. It is there said that the oil is used by the Indians to " anoint themselves, and to 
grease their heads and bodies;" and in the same connection we recognise the fact that 
the Jesuits had a knowledge of the Sulphur Springs at Avon. 

Page 616. — A deserved tribute to the memory of Gen. Porter has been rendered by 
the late Secretary of War, Gov. Marcy, in bestowing the name "Fort Porter," 
upon the U. S. fortification recently erected at Black Rock. 



BRIEF APPENDIX TO SECOND EDITION. 



Projection OF the Erie Canal. — The first suggestion of an overland navigable 
canal, such as the Erie Caual now is, connecting the waters of the Hudson and Lake 
Erie, was undoubtedly that made to Col. Mynderse, by Jesse Hawley, as noted on page 
G29. The first public essay upon the subject, was that published in the "Pittsburgh 
Commonwealth" of date, Jan. 14, 1807, which was written by Jesse Hawley. The 
following letter was writted by him in the July following, previous, as will be observed, 
lo the first essay of " Hercules" in the Ontario Messenger. It has never before been 
published, as the author infers from observation and enquiry. It was found among the 
papers of Mr. Granger, and as it would seem, has hitherto been overlooked in the 
searches that have been made for the early historical reminiscences of the Erie Canal. 
Mr. Haw^lev, having zealously espoused the over land canal, was jealous of the propos- 
ed survey of tlie Oswego River, and the taking of the "elevation of the waters of Lake 
Erie, above those of Ontario," and interposed his letter to divert the attention of his 
friend Mr. Granger from the Lake route. — The author inserts the letter as one inti- 
mately connected with the history of our internal improvments, and deserving of pre- 
servation in an enduring form: — 

" Greensburg, Pa., 12th July, 1807. 
Erastus Granger, Esq. 

Sir. — Gideon Granger, Esq. in passing through this place, on his late tour to New 
Connecticut, observed in a conversation with some gentlemen of this place, that the 
United States government were turning their attention to the subject of Canals — and 
that their first object was to open a course of inland navigation, which would most ex- 
tensively communicate with the Atlantic and its ports, and the great western waters and 
territory of the United States, and by extending the commercial connections of the east- 
ern and western sections of the American Empire, would cultivate and strengthen that 
of the social also, which would aid in preventing a dismemberment of them. 

He observed that the government considered the route through the State of New York 
as best calculated for the purpose, and had employed engineers to examine the Mohawk, 
Wood Creek, Oswego River, &c. — and that you were to be employed to take the ele- 
vation of the waters of Lake Erie above those of Ontario, «fcc. 

Sir, — Although I have no individual interest in the subject, yet I feel even a forward- 
ness to communicate the superficial information which I possess on the subject, and 
which I have acquired by a ver\' partial attachment to it 



APPENDIX. 667 

The favorite idea of mine is to tap Lake Erie about your place, and Canal it to the 
Mohawk at or about Utica. 

Ellicott's map of the Holland Purchase lays down the elevation of Erie above that 
of Ontario, 450 feet. Say, Utica is .50 feet above Ontario also, (and 1 think it large 
enoug-h,) leaves Erie 400 feet above Utica; — is equal to about 2 feet fall per mile, aver- 
aged on the whole distance. I think it is allowed that one foot fall in the mile gives a 
current of six miles per hour. If so, the 400 feet fall would require some Locks, and 
through that almost level country they could be thrown on almost any part of the route, 
to the best advantage. After pursuing a northerly course from its departure at your 
place, for the purpose of obtaining a fall to give it current, it could wind easterly, and • 
probably have to cross the Tonewanta; thence directly east, and cross the Genesee, prob- 
ably below the junction of Allen's Creek. Thence fall near to, and probably into the 
bed of Mud Creek, and pursue its channel, with improvements, into and thence down the 
Seneca River, to about the head of Jack's Piifts. Thence leaving that to the left, run 
along the foot of the hills and high grounds of Onondaga county, &c. &c„ on to 
Utica. 

This Canal would command tho two grand desideratum of nature, viz. an inexhaust- 
able fountain of water, capable of being gauged to any dimensions required to preserve 
the navigation for ever in good order, except the interruptions of port, and absolute 
head and fall which could be pitched by the ingenuity of man almost to his wishes It 
would also improve the navigation of the Mohawk by the discharge of its surplus water 
— and could be made productive of some revenue by renting or selling the mill sites 
made at the places where it would be necessary to raise its bed, or channels, by banking; 
which would be very valuable through the most of that country, natural ones being 
scarce; and still more for their convenience of navigation. 

To pursue the present water route, while it could, indeed, be much improved by art, 
still would be subject to insurmountable impediments. The upper streams of the Mo- 
hawk and Wood Creek afford to the Canal at Rome, and the passages west to Oneida 
Lake, and east to Utica in the drought of mid-summer, but a stinted supply of water, 
and a verv tedious and laborious passage to boats even of seven and five tons burthen. 
The Mohawk even below Utica is embarrassed with stinted waters during a large part, 
(say several months of the season.) This is fully demonstrated by the charges of water 
transport being as dear as those of the land. To these add the tedious delay of the nu- 
merous Locks additional — the 450 feet fall from Erie to Ontario — say 50 feet descent 
of water without Locks — leaves 400 feet to be locked — say 10 feet to each Lock — 
(about the average of those at Litlle Falls) — are 40 Locks; — to these add one at 
Oswego Falls, with one already at Rome, with its Canal — are 42 Locks. 

The proposed Canal would not require, more than, say from 5 to 10 Locks — with its 
distance abridged, say 50 miles, and the sometines dangerous navigation of the Ontario 
rendered safe. Say the difference of number of Locks to be 30 — the expense of which 
would Canal almost as many miles of good level ground. 

To obviate the objection of " incalculable expense," I will extract from Pinkerton's 
Geography, some partial data; — vol. 1, p. 199, speaking of the Canal of Languedoc, 
in France,' says, this noble Canal begins in the bay of Languedoc. — At St. Ferrol is a 
reservoirof 595 acres of water," (on the highest ground to supply it) "It enters the 
Garronne | mile below Tolouse; its breadth including the towing path is 144 feet; the 
depth, 6 feet; length 64 French leagues, or about 180 English miles; 15 years labor 
were employed, the expense more than £ 500,000 Sterling" — say equal to $ 2,500,000. 
Also, speaking of Denmark, vol. 1, p. 388. "The Canal of Keil is intended to unite 
the Baltic with the Eydor Piiver, which flows into the German Sea. Its length is 20J 
English miles; breadth, 100 feet at top and 54 at bottom; the least depth about 10 feet, 
so as to admit vessels of about 120 tons; finished in about twelve years." 

Say the Reservoir of 595 acres is equal to expense, (which is very conjectural) of 20 
miles Canal. This would make the Canal of Languedoc equal to 200 miles — about 
the distance from Buffalo to Utica, and to cost of $2,500,000. Say from the difference 
in the price of labor between this countrj' and France, it should cost $5,000,000 ; or to 
average, $25,000 per mile or nearly $80 per rod. But the Canal of Languedoc must 
have passed over some very uneven ground and have required many more Locks than 
this would do; and Locks are the vortex of expense. 

To point out all the advantages — the connections of interest and of Empire — the 
vast extension of internal commerce — a new and common channel of the Trade of 
Upper Canada — its aid in regulating the excess of markets between old and new set- 
tlements — the rapid settlement of a new countr)- by its facility to emigration — itsfacil- 



668 APPENDIX. 

ity and consequent familier intercourse — its enhancement of tho value of property, 
probably, to once, twice, thrice, and eventually, four times the amount of its first cost; 
— and its deriving from these generative powers for other Canals, yet untold and uncon- 
ceived — are themes which might fill a volume. But the details of these iteijii» nume- 
rous items yet unknown, I must leave to the suggestions of your superior genius. 

I presume the magnitude of tho subject will form a sufficient apology for my intrusion 
of it upon your attention. While most of the subjects hinted at cannot but heimpcxfed; 
yet, sufficiently correct to establish the main question of possibility. 
I am Respectfully, 

Yours &c. 




P. S. — While with a letter in my hand, I will observe on the several letters I have 
written you on business, under the firm of " Hawley & Corl," of Geneva. If you 
have received any letters from Detroit, I hope you have been so obliging as to have 
forwarded them according to my last advice, viz., to Mr. Samuel Colt, of Geneva. Jf 
j'ou should yet receive any I have to request the same attention. 

The business of that firm has been unfortunate for me. I have been in exile for some 
months past, in consequence of its difficulties; but now expect to deposit myself in 
Canandaisrua iail in a few weeks. That has caused some delay to this letter. 
^ Yours, "J. H." 

Ancient Fortification on Buffalo Creek. — The author was aware, when the first 
edition of this worli went to press, that he had omitted notices of many localities within 
the limits of the Holland Purchase, where Ancient Remains were distinctly to be traced; 
but it was not until further examinations had been made, and more full information had 
been acquired, that he was aware of the great extent of these interesting subjects of in- 
vestigation and speculation. The whole field has as yet been but partially explored, but 
it is hoped that enough has been done to elicit further inquiry, and induce a survey of 
the whole region of Western New York, with reference to supplying that which should 
have been provided for in the munificent historical and scientific enterprise now prose- 
cuting by our State. 

Upon the middle branch of Buffalo Creek, three and a half miles from the village 
of Aurora, on the Seneca Indian Reservation, there are the remains of one of the 
largest class of ancient fortifications. A raised work, or mound of earth, enclosed an 
area of two acres. It occupied a bluft" point, overlooking a bend of the stream, its lo- 
cation evincing much of modern militarj' science. In an early period of the settlement 
of the country the whole work could be distinctly traced. Upon the spot and in the im- 
mediate vicinity, almost as often as the plough or the spado is put into the ground, relics, 
clearly distinguishable from those that mark the later occupancy of ihe Indian race, aro 
found 

As in other instances, the spot had attracfions for the successive Indian Nations that 
possessed this region of the Lakes — the Eries, the Neuter Nation, and the Iroquois; for 
there are palpable evidences of a continued occupancy, extending down to our own pe- 
riod. Second, and even third timber growths were apparent over a space of fifty or 
sixty acres. When the French Franciscan and Jesuit Missionaries, and Fur traders, 
came to this region, they undoubtedly found there a considerable settlement of the Iro- 
quois, and made it one of their principal stations. The author found in the possssion 
of Mr. John T. King, the present owner of the land, numerous relics he had ploughed 
up in his fields, and among them two large French padlocks; one of them, especially, 
in its rude construction, marking an early period of the science of lock making. It is 
of a size unparalelled in locks of modern construction, unique in shape, resembling the 
padlocks that we see in pictures, upon the doors of ancient castles, prisons, and monas- 
teries, Intelligent foreigners say that such locks are found now in France and Germa- 
ny, but are regarded there as those of primitive construction. The padlocks were both 
locked; from which circumstance we may well infer that the French made a hurried 
evacuation of the locahty, during one of the periods of hostile demonstrations on the 
part of the Iroquois; and it is not likely (hat such articles would have been left behind 
in a peaceful or premeditated departure 

Ancient Record,' or Tablet. — In the year 1809, a copper plate was ploughed up 

in a field belonging to Mr. Ephriam Woodrufl\, the early pioneer blacltsmith, in Willink, 

now Aurora.) Those who saw it differ in reference to its size; the average of their 



APPENDIX. 

recollections would make it twelve by sixteen inches; in thickness not far from the 8th 
of an inch. It had engraved nponone side of it, in regnlar lines, extending the whole 
width of the plate, what would appear to have been some record, or as we may well im- 
agine some brief code of laws, in manner and form, like the tablets of the early nations 
to which allusions are made in both sacred and profane history. The letters, hyroglyph- 
ics, or characters, are described as having a close resemblance to the " old fashioned 
printed music notes." Upon the reverse side of the plate at each corner, there was an 
engraved image, resembling, (in the language of one of the author's informants,) some 
of the pictures in Stevens' work on the ruins of Central America. 

Unfortunately for those who take a deep interest in this branch of American history — 
who are eager to catch even glimpses of that which is involved in so much obscurity, 
the mysterious plate was a sacrifice to the exigencies of that early period of settlement:— 
After being looked upon with wonder, (as it would be now,) those who possessed it, and 
were somewhat unmindful of its value, allowed it to be worked up — converted into 
kitclaen utensils — a dipper and a skimmer. They were not Antiquarians, as must be 
ini'ened, and a sheet of copper in those primitive times, was a rarity that must have 
strongly inclined them to utilitarianism. A surviving son of the early blacksmith, who 
worked up the plate, is quite confident that he did not hammer out the whole of the en- 
graved lines, All traces of the dipper are lost, but it is confidently believed that the 
skimmer has been preserved in a branch of the Woodruff family, now residing at the 
west. If so, and there are any portion of the engraved lines yet legible, it will be put 
into the hands of some one competent to the task of interpretation. But a partial un- 
derstanding of the character of the mysterious relic, can, however, be anticipated. But 
we may well infer, that the plate, had, it been preserved entire, would have furnished 
something more decisive than any thing that has yet been discovered; and perhaps, 
have determined what race or people it was that history, and even tradition has lost 
sight of; but of whose occupancy of this region, there are so numerous and palpable 
evidences. 

Though it is travelling somewhat beyond his bounds, the author is constrained to 
notice two extraordinary relics that came under his observation during the last summer. 
A section of an oak tree is now in the possession of Gen. O. G. Barney of Newark, 
Wayne county, which contains an incision resembling the box made in the maple trees 
of our forest in the process of tapping, and of about the same dimensions. There is 
little to distinguish it from cuts made in trees, by our woodsmen, with the common mod- 
ern axe. The impressions made at each successive blow are about the same as made 
by the axemen of the present day. Ovcrthisinc'isioniherev) ere four hundred and sixty 
concentric circles, or grains. Counting a year for each circle, ac observation and the 
conclusions of naturalists enable us to do, and we are forced to the conclusion that this 
chopping was done with a sharp axe, about the year 1375: one hundred and twenty-two 
years before Cabot discovered the northern continent of America; and 159 vears before 
Cartier entered and sailed up the St. Lawrence. 

During the last summer, in extracting a pine stump upon the farm of Judge Ells- 
worth, on the banks of Crooked Lake, in Yates county, a small copper hatchet was 
taken out of the pit made by extracting the tap root. The tree was nearly ^»e hundred 
years old. 

Human, and Animal Skeletons. — In the the village of Pekin, Niagara county, du- 
ring the last summer, in the process of road making, a large number of human skele- 
tons were excavated from a depth of about 18 inches. There was a striking peculiarity 
In the position in which they were found. A large nuniberof skulls dislocated from the 
under jaws were placed in a row, and over them, the under jaws, and the other bones 
of the human frame were promiscuously mingled. 

A few rods from this deposit of human bones, on the slope of the Mountain Ridge, a 
large niche in the rock was filled with the bones of animals; most of which, especially 
the jaws and bones of the fore legs, resembled those of bears, of a large size. 

Page 143. — Although is is to be infeiTed from notes that follow, it should have been 
directly stated, that the translation from which the account of De Nonville's expedition 
was derived, was made by O. H. Marshall, Esq. from the Paris documents, and commu- 
nicated to the New York Historical Society, by whom it was published in a pamphlet 
form. — Mr. M. accompanied his translation with a drawing of the battle ground be- 
tween De Nonville and the Senecas, and numerous proofs of the identity of the location. 

Page 192. — In a lecture delivered before the Young Men's Association of Buffalo 
last winter, Mr. Marshall assumes that the earliest notice of Niagara Falls on record. 



670 APPENDIX 

is that of Father Ragueneau, in 1648. He says: — *» South of the Neuter Nation is a 
great Lake, called Erie, almost 200 leagues in circumference, into which is discharged 
the Fresh Sea; or Lake Huron. This Lake Erie, is precipitated by a cataract of fright- 
ful height into a third Lake, called Ontario, and by us St. Louis." 

Page 31L — The name of the earlv drover who was murdered on the Ridge Read, 
was Nehomiah Street. 

Page 38L — At the suggestion of George Hosmer, Esq. of Avon, the author corrects 
an error which does great injustice to a worthy and reputable man. Peterson, the earlv 
tavern keeper, at Caledonia Springs, was never implicated as is stated. He was prece- 
ded by two foreigners, Moffat and Kane, who, under pretence of keeping a house of 
entertainment, were undoubtedly robbers. — They were possessed of much valuable 
property, unsuited to their condition in life, such as watches, jewelry, fine linen, and such 
articles of furniture as could only be expected in the houses of tlie wealthy. They left 
the country to escape the consequences of the probably just suspicions of the early set- 
tlers of that region. 

Page 555. — In our necessarily brief notices of pioneer settlers in Orleans county, the 
name of Judge John Lee, should not have been overlooked. He settled in the town of 
Barre, in 1816, becoming the founder of what was called "Lee's Settlement." The 
town was named at his suggestion, after his native town, Barre, in Massachusetts. He 
was one of that numerous class of early settlers upon the Holland Purchase — (all of 
wiiom the author would have been glad to have noticed in these pages,) — whose me- 
mories are entitled to tributes of gratitude from those who are now enjoying the emineiit 
blessings to which their exertions have so largely contributed. His house was open to 
those who were exploring the new country with reference to settlement; and when lo- 
cated in their wilderness homes, he was ever ready to render them those offices of kind- 
ness which none but those who have been settlers in anew country, know how to appre- 
ciate. He was the first P. M. in Barre, and filled the office of a county Judge undui 
the old county organization. He died in 1825, aged 60 years. He left a large famih 
of sons and daughters, most of whom are now heads of families, and residents of Or 
leans county 
















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